History of My Calamities
{"WorkMasterId":6980,"WpPageId":285891,"ParentWpPageId":193768,"Slug":"history-of-my-calamities","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/peter-abelard/history-of-my-calamities/","RelativeUrl":"theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/peter-abelard/history-of-my-calamities/","HasFullText":true,"RawHtmlLength":240940,"CleanHtmlLength":183756,"Kicker":"Philosophy Work","Title":"History of My Calamities","Deck":"Historia Calamitatum is Abelard\u0027s autobiographical account of study, conflict, Heloise, condemnation, and suffering","BackLink":{"Text":"Back to Peter Abelard","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/peter-abelard/"},"AuthorCard":{"Label":"Author","Title":"Peter Abelard","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/peter-abelard/","MediaHref":"","ImageSrc":"https://chrisdeasy.com/wp-content/uploads/peter-abelard-01-peter-abelard-portrait.jpg","ImageAlt":"Peter Abelard in an Oleszczynski portrait","FilterTerra":"Western Europe","ClickText":"Peter Abelard","ClickHref":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/philosophers/peter-abelard/","Copies":["1079 CE – 1142 CE","Le Pallet, Brittany","Medieval scholastic philosopher of logic, universals, dialectic, intention, moral responsibility, Trinitarian theology, Sic et Non, Heloise, and the schools of Paris."]},"ContextCards":[{"Label":"Period","Key":"Period:2","Title":"Medieval History","DateText":"500 CE – 1499 CE","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/eras-of-thought/philosophers-of-medieval-history/"},{"Label":"Era","Key":"Era:5","Title":"High Medieval","DateText":"1000 CE – 1299 CE","Url":"https://chrisdeasy.com/theos/humanities/philosophy/eras-of-thought/philosophers-of-medieval-history/philosophers-of-high-medieval/"},{"Label":"Composition","Title":"1132 CE","Url":"","DateText":""}],"DateNote":"Displayed year follows the available source evidence; uncertainty is preserved in the evidence notes","GeoCards":[{"Label":"Region","Key":"Region:1"},{"Label":"Terra Avita","Key":"TerraAvita:1"},{"Label":"Terra Avita Region","Key":"TerraAvitaRegion:1"},{"Label":"Modern Country","Key":"Country:FRA:1"}],"OriginalTitle":"Historia Calamitatum","Language":"Latin","DisciplineCards":[{"Label":"Primary Discipline","Key":"Discipline:autobiography"},{"Label":"Secondary Discipline","Key":"Discipline:ethics"}],"Tradition":"Medieval scholasticism","FullText":{"Title":"Full Text","Copy":"Public-domain full text from Project Gutenberg eBook #14268 .","Url":"","Label":"","Kicker":"","Cards":[]},"CoreThesis":["Historia Calamitatum is Abelard\u0027s autobiographical account of study, conflict, Heloise, condemnation, and suffering"],"Classification":{"AlternateTitles":"History of My Misfortunes; Story of My Calamities","KeyConcepts":"History of My Misfortunes; Story of My Calamities","Methodology":"Bibliographic comparison and source-context review","Structure":"Documented work entry with complex manuscript and edition history"},"Arguments":["Historia Calamitatum is Abelard\u0027s autobiographical account of study, conflict, Heloise, condemnation, and suffering"],"Influence":{"InfluencedBy":"","InfluenceOn":""},"Significance":["Register as a direct autobiographical work","History of My Calamities is included as a direct work by Peter Abelard. Dates are source-backed approximations, and manuscript and edition histories are complex."],"EvidenceNote":["Register as a direct autobiographical work"],"MainSections":[{"Kind":"RawSection","Title":"Full Versions","BodyHtml":"\u003cdiv class=\"dz-philo__full-version-grid\"\u003e\n \u003carticle class=\"dz-philo__full-version-card\"\u003e\n \u003cp class=\"dz-philo__full-version-provider\"\u003eProject Gutenberg\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003ch3 class=\"dz-philo__full-version-title\"\u003eProject Gutenberg eBook #14268\u003c/h3\u003e\n \u003cp class=\"dz-philo__full-version-meta\"\u003eHtmlText · Imported\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003ca class=\"dz-philo__full-version-link\" href=\"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14268\"\u003eOpen full version\u003c/a\u003e\n \u003c/article\u003e\n \u003c/div\u003e"},{"Kind":"TextSection","Title":"Core Thesis","Paragraphs":["Historia Calamitatum is Abelard\u0027s autobiographical account of study, conflict, Heloise, condemnation, and suffering"]},{"Kind":"FieldSection","Title":"Classification","Fields":[{"Label":"Alternate Titles","Value":"History of My Misfortunes; Story of My Calamities"},{"Label":"Key Concepts","Value":"History of My Misfortunes; Story of My Calamities"},{"Label":"Methodology","Value":"Bibliographic comparison and source-context review"},{"Label":"Structure","Value":"Documented work entry with complex manuscript and edition history"}]},{"Kind":"TextSection","Title":"Arguments","Paragraphs":["Historia Calamitatum is Abelard\u0027s autobiographical account of study, conflict, Heloise, condemnation, and suffering"]},{"Kind":"FieldSection","Title":"Influence","Fields":[{"Label":"Influenced By","Value":""},{"Label":"Influence On","Value":""}]},{"Kind":"TextSection","Title":"Significance","Paragraphs":["Register as a direct autobiographical work","History of My Calamities is included as a direct work by Peter Abelard. Dates are source-backed approximations, and manuscript and edition histories are complex."]},{"Kind":"TextSection","Title":"Evidence Note","Paragraphs":["Register as a direct autobiographical work"]},{"Kind":"RawSection","Title":"Full Text","BodyHtml":"\u003cp class=\"dz-philo__section-copy dz-philo__full-text-source\"\u003ePublic-domain full text from \u003ca href=\"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14268\"\u003eProject Gutenberg eBook #14268\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003carticle class=\"dz-philo__full-text-body\"\u003e\r\n\u003ch6 id=\"id00000\"\u003eHISTORIA CALAMITATUM\u003c/h6\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eTHE STORY OF MY MISFORTUNES\u003c/h4\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00002\"\u003eAn Autobiography by Peter Abélard\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00003\"\u003eTranslated by Henry Adams Bellows\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00004\"\u003eIntroduction by Ralph Adams Cram\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eINTRODUCTION\u003c/h3\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00006\"\u003eThe \"Historia Calamitatum\" of Peter Abélard is one of those human\r\ndocuments, out of the very heart of the Middle Ages, that\r\nilluminates by the glow of its ardour a shadowy period that has\r\nbeen made even more dusky and incomprehensible by unsympathetic\r\ncommentators and the ill-digested matter of \"source-books.\" Like\r\nthe \"Confessions\" of St. Augustine it is an authentic revelation of\r\npersonality and, like the latter, it seems to show how unchangeable\r\nis man, how consistent unto himself whether he is of the sixth\r\ncentury or the twelfth—or indeed of the twentieth century.\r\n\"Evolution\" may change the flora and fauna of the world, or modify\r\nits physical forms, but man is always the same and the unrolling of\r\nthe centuries affects him not at all. If we can assume the vivid\r\npersonality, the enormous intellectual power and the clear, keen\r\nmentality of Abélard and his contemporaries and immediate\r\nsuccessors, there is no reason why \"The Story of My Misfortunes\"\r\nshould not have been written within the last decade.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00007\"\u003eThey are large assumptions, for this is not a period in world\r\nhistory when the informing energy of life expresses itself through\r\nsuch qualities, whereas the twelfth century was of precisely this\r\nnature. The antecedent hundred years had seen the recovery from the\r\nbarbarism that engulfed Western Europe after the fall of Rome, and\r\nthe generation of those vital forces that for two centuries were to\r\ninfuse society with a vigour almost unexampled in its potency and\r\nin the things it brought to pass. The parabolic curve that\r\ndescribes the trajectory of Mediaevalism was then emergent out of\r\n\"chaos and old night\" and Abélard and his opponent, St. Bernard,\r\nrode high on the mounting force in its swift and almost violent\r\nascent.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00008\"\u003ePierre du Pallet, yclept Abélard, was born in 1079 and died in\r\n1142, and his life precisely covers the period of the birth,\r\ndevelopment and perfecting of that Gothic style of architecture\r\nwhich is one of the great exemplars of the period. Actually, the\r\nNorman development occupied the years from 1050 to 1125 while the\r\ninitiating and determining of Gothic consumed only fifteen years,\r\nfrom Bury, begun in 1125, to Saint-Denis, the work of Abbot Suger,\r\nthe friend and partisan of Abélard, in 1140. It was the time of the\r\nCrusades, of the founding and development of schools and\r\nuniversities, of the invention or recovery of great arts, of the\r\ngrowth of music, poetry and romance. It was the age of great kings\r\nand knights and leaders of all kinds, but above all it was the\r\nepoch of a new philosophy, refounded on the newly revealed corner\r\nstones of Plato and Aristotle, but with a new content, a new\r\nimpulse and a new method inspired by Christianity.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00009\"\u003eAll these things, philosophy, art, personality, character, were the\r\nproduct of the time, which, in its definiteness and consistency,\r\nstands apart from all other epochs in history. The social system\r\nwas that of feudalism, a scheme of reciprocal duties, privileges\r\nand obligations as between man and man that has never been excelled\r\nby any other system that society has developed as its own method of\r\noperation. As Dr. De Wulf has said in his illuminating book\r\n\"Philosophy and Civilization in the Middle Ages\" (a volume that\r\nshould be read by any one who wishes rightly to understand the\r\nspirit and quality of Mediaevalism), \"the feudal sentiment \u003ci\u003epar\r\nexcellence\u003c/i\u003e … is the sentiment of the value and dignity of the\r\nindividual man. The feudal man lived as a free man; he was master\r\nin his own house; he sought his end in himself; he was—and this is\r\na scholastic expression,—\u003ci\u003epropter seipsum existens\u003c/i\u003e: all feudal\r\nobligations were founded upon respect for personality and the given\r\nword.\"\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00010\"\u003eOf course this admirable scheme of society with its guild system of\r\nindustry, its absence of usury in any form and its just sense of\r\ncomparative values, was shot through and through with religion both\r\nin faith and practice. Catholicism was universally and implicitly\r\naccepted. Monasticism had redeemed Europe from barbarism and Cluny\r\nhad freed the Church from the yoke of German imperialism. This\r\nunity and immanence of religion gave a consistency to society\r\notherwise unobtainable, and poured its vitality into every form of\r\nhuman thought and action.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00011\"\u003eIt was Catholicism and the spirit of feudalism that preserved men\r\nfrom the dangers inherent in the immense individualism of the time.\r\nWith this powerful and penetrating coördinating force men were safe\r\nto go about as far as they liked in the line of individuality,\r\nwhereas today, for example, the unifying force of a common and\r\nvital religion being absent and nothing having been offered to take\r\nits place, the result of a similar tendency is egotism and anarchy.\r\nThese things happened in the end in the case of Mediaevalism when\r\nthe power and the influence of religion once began to weaken, and\r\nthe Renaissance and Reformation dissolved the fabric of a unified\r\nsociety. Thereafter it became necessary to bring some order out of\r\nthe spiritual, intellectual and physical chaos through the\r\napplication of arbitrary force, and so came absolutism in\r\ngovernment, the tyranny of the new intellectualism, the Catholic\r\nInquisition and the Puritan Theocracy.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00012\"\u003eIn the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, however, the balance is\r\njustly preserved, though it was but an unstable equilibrium, and\r\ntherefore during the time of Abélard we find the widest diversity\r\nof speculation and freedom of thought which continue unhampered for\r\nmore than a hundred years. The mystical school of the Abbey of St.\r\nVictor in Paris follows one line (perhaps the most nearly right of\r\nall though it was submerged by the intellectual force and vivacity\r\nof the Scholastics) with Hugh of St. Victor as its greatest\r\nexponent. The Franciscans and Dominicans each possessed great\r\nschools of philosophy and dogmatic theology, and in addition there\r\nwere a dozen individual line of speculation, each vitalized by some\r\none personality, daring, original, enthusiastic. This prodigious\r\nmental and spiritual activity was largely fostered by the schools,\r\ncolleges and universities that had suddenly appeared all over\r\nEurope. Never was such activity along educational lines. Almost\r\nevery cathedral had its school, and many of the abbeys as well, as\r\nfor example, in France alone, Cluny, Citeaux and Bec, St. Martin of\r\nTours, Laon, Chartres, Rheims and Paris. To these schools students\r\npoured in from all over the world in numbers mounting to many\r\nthousands for such as Paris for example, and the mutual rivalries\r\nwere intense and sometimes disorderly. Groups of students would\r\nchoose their own masters and follow them from place to place, even\r\nsubjecting them to discipline if in their opinion they did not live\r\nup to the intellectual mark they had set as their standard. As\r\nthere was not only one religion and one social system, but one\r\nuniversal language as well, this gathering from all the four\r\nquarters of Europe was perfectly possible, and had much to do with\r\nthe maintenance of that unity which marked society for three centuries.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00013\"\u003eAt the time of Abélard the schools of Chartres and Paris were at\r\nthe height of their fame and power. Fulbert, Bernard and Thierry,\r\nall of Chartres, had fixed its fame for a long period, and at Paris\r\nHugh and Richard of St. Victor and William of Champeaux were names\r\nto conjure with, while Anselm of Laon, Adelard of Bath, Alan of\r\nLille, John of Salisbury, Peter Lombard, were all from time to time\r\nstudents or teachers in one of the schools of the Cathedral, the\r\nAbbey of St. Victor or Ste. Geneviève.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00014\"\u003eEarlier in the Middle Ages the identity of theology and philosophy\r\nhad been proclaimed, following the Neo-Platonic and Augustinian\r\ntheory, and the latter (cf. Peter Damien and Duns Scotus Eriugena)\r\nwas even reduced to a position that made it no more than the\r\nobedient handmaid of theology. In the eleventh century however, St.\r\nAnselm had drawn a clear distinction between faith and reason, and\r\nthereafter theology and philosophy were generally accepted as\r\nindividual but allied sciences, both serving as lines of approach\r\nto truth but differing in their method. Truth was one and therefore\r\nthere could be no conflict between the conclusions reached after\r\ndifferent fashions. In the twelfth century Peter of Blois led a\r\ncertain group called \"rigourists\" who still looked askance at\r\nphilosophy, or rather at the intellectual methods by which it\r\nproceeded, and they were inclined to condemn it as \"the devil\u0027s\r\nart,\" but they were on the losing side and John of Salisbury, Alan\r\nof Lille, Gilbert de la Porrée and Hugh of St. Victor prevailed in\r\ntheir contention that philosophers were \"\u003ci\u003ehumanae videlicet\r\nsapientiae amatores\u003c/i\u003e,\" while theologians were \"_divinae scripturae\r\ndoctores.\"\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00015\"\u003eCardinal Mercier, himself the greatest contemporary exponent of\r\nScholastic philosophy, defines philosophy as \"the science of the\r\ntotality of things.\" The twelfth century was a time when men were\r\nstriving to see phenomena in this sense and established a great\r\nrational synthesis that should yet be in full conformity with the\r\ndogmatic theology of revealed religion. Abélard was one of the most\r\nenthusiastic and daring of these Mediaeval thinkers, and it is not\r\nsurprising that he should have found himself at issue not only with\r\nthe duller type of theologians but with his philosophical peers\r\nthemselves. He was an intellectual force of the first magnitude and\r\na master of dialectic; he was also an egotist through and through,\r\nand a man of strong passions. He would and did use his logical\r\nfaculty and his mastery of dialectic to justify his own desires,\r\nwhether these were for carnal satisfaction or the maintenance of an\r\noriginal intellectual concept. It was precisely this danger that\r\naroused the fears of the \"rigourists\" and in the light of\r\nsucceeding events in the domain of intellectualism it is impossible\r\nto deny that there was some justification for their gloomy\r\napprehensions. In St. Thomas Aquinas this intellectualizing process\r\nmarked its highest point and beyond there was no margin of safety.\r\nHe himself did not overstep the verge of danger, but after him this\r\nlimit was overpassed. The perfect balance between mind and spirit\r\nwas achieved by Hugh of St. Victor, but afterwards the severance\r\nbegan and on the one side was the unwholesome hyper-spiritualization\r\nof the Rhenish mystics, on the other the false intellectualism of\r\nDescartes, Kant and the entire modern school of materialistic\r\nphilosophy. It was the clear prevision of this inevitable issue\r\nthat made of St. Bernard not only an implacable opponent of Abélard\r\nbut of the whole system of Scholasticism as well. For a time he was\r\nvictorious. Abélard was silenced and the mysticism of the\r\nVictorines triumphed, only to be superseded fifty years later when\r\nthe two great orders, Dominican and Franciscan, produced their\r\ntriumphant protagonists of intellectualism, Alelander Halesand\r\nAlbertus Magnus, and finally the greatest pure intellect of all\r\ntime, St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Bernard, St. Francis of Assisi, the\r\nVictorines, maintained that after all, as Henri Bergson was to say,\r\nseven hundred years later, \"the mind of man by its very nature is\r\nincapable of apprehending reality,\" and that therefore faith is\r\nbetter than reason. Lord Bacon came to the same conclusion when he\r\nwrote \"Let men please themselves as they will in admiring and\r\nalmost adoring the human kind, this is certain; that, as an uneven\r\nmirrour distorts the rays of objects according to its own figure\r\nand section, so the mind … cannot be trusted.\" And Hugh of St.\r\nVictor himself, had written, even in the days of Abélard: \"There\r\nwas a certain wisdom that seemed such to them that knew not the\r\ntrue wisdom. The world found it and began to be puffed up, thinking\r\nitself great in this. Confiding in its wisdom it became\r\npresumptuous and boasted it would attain the highest wisdom. And it\r\nmade itself a ladder of the face of creation. … Then those things\r\nwhich were seen were known and there were other things which were\r\nnot known; and through those which were manifest they expected to\r\nreach those that were hidden. And they stumbled and fell into the\r\nfalsehoods of their own imagining … So God made foolish the\r\nwisdom of this world, and He pointed out another wisdom, which\r\nseemed foolishness and was not. For it preached Christ crucified,\r\nin order that truth might be sought in humility. But the world\r\ndespised it, wishing to contemplate the works of God, which He had\r\nmade a source of wonder, and it did not wish to venerate what He\r\nhad set for imitation, neither did it look to its own disease,\r\nseeking medicine in piety; but presuming on a false health, it gave\r\nitself over with vain curiosity to the study of alien things.\"\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00016\"\u003eThese considerations troubled Abélard not at all. He was conscious\r\nof a mind of singular acuteness and a tongue of parts, both of\r\nwhich would do whatever he willed. Beneath all the tumultuous talk\r\nof Paris, when he first arrived there, lay the great and unsolved\r\nproblem of Universals and this he promptly made his own, rushing in\r\nwhere others feared to tread. William of Champeaux had rested on a\r\nPlatonic basis, Abélard assumed that of Aristotle, and the clash\r\nbegan. It is not a lucid subject, but the best abstract may be\r\nfound in Chapter XIV of Henry Adams\u0027 \"Mont-Saint-Michel and\r\nChartres\" while this and the two succeeding chapters give the most\r\nluminous and vivacious account of the principles at issue in\r\nthis most vital of intellectual feuds.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00017\"\u003e\"According to the latest authorities, the doctrine of universals\r\nwhich convulsed the schools of the twelfth century has never\r\nreceived an adequate answer. What is a species: what is a genus or\r\na family or an order? More or less convenient terms of classification,\r\nabout which the twelfth century cared very little, while it cared\r\ndeeply about the essence of classes! Science has become too complex\r\nto affirm the existence of universal truths, but it strives for\r\nnothing else, and disputes the problem, within its own limits,\r\nalmost as earnestly as in the twelfth century, when the whole field\r\nof human and superhuman activity was shut between these barriers\r\nof substance, universals, and particulars. Little has changed except\r\nthe vocabulary and the method. The schools knew that their society\r\nhung for life on the demonstration that God, the ultimate universal,\r\nwas a reality, out of which all other universal truths or realities\r\nsprang. Truth was a real thing, outside of human experience. The\r\nschools of Paris talked and thought of nothing else. John of Salisbury,\r\nwho attended Abélard\u0027s lectures about 1136, and became Bishop of\r\nChartres in 1176, seems to have been more surprised than we need be at\r\nthe intensity of the emotion. \u0027One never gets away from this question,\u0027\r\nhe said. \u0027From whatever point a discussion starts, it is always led\r\nback and attached to that. It is the madness of Rufus about Naevia;\r\n\"He thinks of nothing else; talks of nothing else, and if Naevia did\r\nnot exist, Rufus would be dumb.\"\u0027\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00018\"\u003e… \"In these scholastic tournaments the two champions started from\r\nopposite points:—one from the ultimate substance, God,—the\r\nuniversal, the ideal, the type;—the other from the individual,\r\nSocrates, the concrete, the observed fact of experience, the object\r\nof sensual perception. The first champion—William in this instance—\r\nassumed that the universal was a real thing; and for that reason he\r\nwas called a realist. His opponent—Abélard—held that the\r\nuniversal was only nominally real; and on that account he was\r\ncalled a nominalist. Truth, virtue, humanity, exist as units and\r\nrealities, said William. Truth, replied Abélard, is only the sum of\r\nall possible facts that are true, as humanity is the sum of all\r\nactual human beings. The ideal bed is a form, made by God, said\r\nPlato. The ideal bed is a name, imagined by ourselves, said\r\nAristotle. \u0027I start from the universe,\u0027 said William. \u0027I start from\r\nthe atom,\u0027 said Abélard; and, once having started, they necessarily\r\ncame into collision at some point between the two.\"\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00019\"\u003eIn this \"Story of My Misfortunes\" Abélard gives his own account of\r\nthe triumphant manner in which he confounded his master, William,\r\nbut as Henry Adams says, \"We should be more credulous than\r\ntwelfth-century monks, if we believed, on Abélard\u0027s word in 1135,\r\nthat in 1110 he had driven out of the schools the most accomplished\r\ndialectician of the age by an objection so familiar that no other\r\ndialectician was ever silenced by it—whatever may have been the\r\ncase with theologians-and so obvious that it could not have troubled\r\na scholar of fifteen. William stated a selected doctrine as old as\r\nPlato; Abélard interposed an objection as old as Aristotle. Probably\r\nPlato and Aristotle had received the question and answer from\r\nphilosophers ten thousand years older than themselves. Certainly\r\nthe whole of philosophy has always been involved in this dispute.\"\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00020\"\u003eSo began the battle of the schools with all its more than military\r\nstrategy and tactics, and in the end it was a drawn battle, in\r\nspite of its marvels of intellectual heroism and dialectical\r\nsublety. Says Henry Adams again:—\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00021\"\u003e\"In every age man has been apt to dream uneasily, rolling from side\r\nto side, beating against imaginary bars, unless, tired out, he has\r\nsunk into indifference or scepticism. Religious minds prefer\r\nscepticism. The true saint is a profound sceptic; a total\r\ndisbeliever in human reason, who has more than once joined hands on\r\nthis ground with some who were at best sinners. Bernard was a total\r\ndisbeliever in Scholasticism; so was Voltaire. Bernard brought the\r\nsociety of his time to share his scepticism, but could give the\r\nsociety no other intellectual amusement to relieve its restlessness.\r\nHis crusade failed; his ascetic enthusiasm faded; God came no nearer.\r\nIf there was in all France, between 1140 and 1200, a more typical\r\nEnglishman of the future Church of England type than John of\r\nSalisbury, he has left no trace; and John wrote a description of\r\nhis time which makes a picturesque contrast with the picture\r\npainted by Abélard, his old master, of the century at its beginning.\r\nJohn weighed Abélard and the schools against Bernard and the\r\ncloister, and coolly concluded that the way to truth led rather\r\nthrough Citeaux, which brought him to Chartres as Bishop in 1176,\r\nand to a mild scepticism in faith. \u0027I prefer to doubt\u0027 he said,\r\n\u0027rather than rashly define what is hidden.\u0027 The battle with the\r\nschools had then resulted only in creating three kinds of sceptics:—\r\nthe disbelievers in human reason; the passive agnostics; and the\r\nsceptics proper, who would have been atheists had they dared. The\r\nfirst class was represented by the School of St. Victor; the second\r\nby John of Salisbury himself; the third, by a class of schoolmen\r\nwhom he called Cornificii, as though they made a practice of\r\ninventing horns of dilemma on which to fix their opponents; as, for\r\nexample, they asked whether a pig which was led to market was led\r\nby the man or the cord. One asks instantly: What cord?—Whether\r\nGrace, for instance, or Free Will?\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00022\"\u003e\"Bishop John used the science he had learned in the school only to\r\nreach the conclusion that, if philosophy were a science at all, its\r\nbest practical use was to teach charity—love. Even the early,\r\nsuperficial debates of the schools, in 1100-50, had so exhausted\r\nthe subject that the most intelligent men saw how little was to be\r\ngained by pursuing further those lines of thought. The twelfth\r\ncentury had already reached the point where the seventeenth century\r\nstood when Descartes renewed the attempt to give a solid,\r\nphilosophical basis for deism by his celebrated \u0027\u003ci\u003eCogito, ergo sum\u003c/i\u003e.\u0027\r\nAlthough that ultimate fact seemed new to Europe when Descartes\r\nrevived it as the starting-point of his demonstration, it was as\r\nold and familiar as St. Augustine to the twelfth century, and as\r\nlittle conclusive as any other assumption of the Ego or the Non-Ego.\r\nThe schools argued, according to their tastes, from unity to\r\nmultiplicity, or from multiplicity to unity; but what they wanted\r\nwas to connect the two. They tried realism and found that it led to\r\npantheism. They tried nominalism and found that it ended in\r\nmaterialism. They attempted a compromise in conceptualism which\r\nbegged the whole question. Then they lay down, exhausted. In the\r\nseventeenth century—the same violent struggle broke out again, and\r\nwrung from Pascal the famous outcry of despair in which the French\r\nlanguage rose, perhaps for the last time, to the grand style of the\r\ntwelfth century. To the twelfth century it belongs; to the century\r\nof faith and simplicity; not to the mathematical certainties of\r\nDescartes and Leibnitz and Newton, or to the mathematical\r\nabstractions of Spinoza. Descartes had proclaimed his famous\r\nconceptual proof of God: \u0027I am conscious of myself, and must exist;\r\nI am conscious of God and He must exist.\u0027 Pascal wearily replied\r\nthat it was not God he doubted, but logic. He was tortured by the\r\nimpossibility of rejecting man\u0027s reason by reason; unconsciously\r\nsceptical, he forced himself to disbelieve in himself rather than\r\nadmit a doubt of God. Man had tried to prove God, and had failed:\r\n\u0027The metaphysical proofs of God are so remote (\u003ci\u003eéloignées\u003c/i\u003e) from the\r\nreasoning of men, and so contradictory (\u003ci\u003eimpliquées\u003c/i\u003e, far fetched)\r\nthat they made little impression; and even if they served to\r\nconvince some people, it would only be during the instant that they\r\nsee the demonstration; an hour afterwards they fear to have\r\ndeceived themselves.\u0027\"\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00023\"\u003eAbélard was always, as he has been called, a scholastic adventurer,\r\na philosophical and theological freelance, and it was after the\r\nCalamity that he followed those courses that resulted finally in\r\nhis silencing and his obscure death. It is almost impossible for us\r\nof modern times to understand the violence of partisanship aroused\r\nby his actions and published words that centre apparently around\r\nthe placing of the hermitage he had made for himself under the\r\npatronage of the third Person of the Trinity, the Paraclete, the\r\nSpirit of love and compassion and consolation, and the consequent\r\narguments by which he justified himself. To us it seems that he was\r\nonly trying to exalt the power of the Holy Spirit, a pious action\r\nat the least but to the episcopal and monastic conservators of the\r\nfaith he seems to have been guilty of trying to rationalize an\r\nunsolvable mystery, to find an intellectual solution forbidden to\r\nman. In some obscure way the question seems to be involved in that\r\nother of the function of the Blessed Virgin as the fount of mercy\r\nand compassion, and at this time when the cult of the Mother of God\r\nhad reached its highest point of potency and poignancy anything of\r\nthe sort seemed intolerable.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00024\"\u003eFor a time the affairs of Abélard prospered: Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis\r\nwas his defender, and he enjoyed the favor of the Pope and the\r\nKing. He was made an abbot and his influence spread in every\r\ndirection. In 1137 the King died and conditions at Rome changed so\r\nthat St. Bernard became almost Pope and King in his own person.\r\nWithin a year he proceeded against Abélard; his \"Theology\" was\r\ncondemned at a council of Sens, this judgment was confirmed by the\r\nPope, and the penalty of silence was imposed on the author—\r\nprobably the most severe punishment he could be called upon to\r\nendure. As a matter of fact it was fatal to him. He started\r\nforthwith for Rome but stopped at the Abbey of Cluny in the company\r\nof its Abbot, Peter the Venerable, \"the most amiable figure of the\r\ntwelfth century,\" and no very devoted admirer of St. Bernard, to\r\nwhom, as a matter of fact, he had once written, \"You perform all\r\nthe difficult religious duties; you fast, you watch, you suffer;\r\nbut you will not endure the easy ones-you do not love.\" Here he\r\nfound two years of peace after his troubled life, dying in the full\r\ncommunion of the Church on 21 April, 1142.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00025\"\u003eThe problems of philosophy and theology that were so vital in the\r\nMiddle Ages interest us no more, even when they are less obscure\r\nthan those so rife in the twelfth century, but the problem of human\r\nlove is always near and so it is not perhaps surprising that the\r\nabiding interest concerns itself with Abélard\u0027s relationship with\r\nHéloïse. So far as he is concerned it is not a very savoury matter.\r\nHe deliberately seduced a pupil, a beautiful girl entrusted to him\r\nby her uncle, a simpleminded old canon of the Cathedral of Paris,\r\nunder whose roof he ensconced himself by false pretences and with\r\nthe full intention of gaining the niece for himself. Abélard seems\r\nto have exercised an irresistible fascination for men and women\r\nalike, and his plot succeeded to admiration. Stricken by a belated\r\nremorse, he finally married Héloïse against her unselfish protests\r\nand partly to legitimatize his unborn child, and shortly after he\r\nwas surprised and overpowered by emissaries of Canon Fulbert and\r\nsubjected to irreparable mutilation. He tells the story with\r\nperfect frankness and with hardly more than formal expressions of\r\ncompunction, and thereafter follows the narrative of their\r\nseparation, he to a monastery, she to a convent, and of his care\r\nfor her during her conventual life, or at least for that part of it\r\nthat had passed before the \"History\" was written. Through the whole\r\nstory it is Héloise who shines brightly as a curiously beautiful\r\npersonality, unselfish, self sacrificing, and almost virginal in\r\nher purity in spite of her fault. One has for her only sympathy and\r\naffection whereas it is difficult to feel either for Abélard in\r\nspite of his belated efforts at rectifying his own sin and his\r\nlife-long devotion to his solitary wife in her hidden cloister.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00026\"\u003eThe whole story was instantly known, Abélard\u0027s assailants were\r\npunished in kind, .and he himself shortly resumed his work of\r\nlecturing on philosophy and, a little later, on theology.\r\nApparently his reputation did not suffer in the least, nor did\r\nhers; in fact her piety became almost a by-word and his name as a\r\ngreat teacher increased by leaps and bounds: neither his offence\r\nnor its punishment seemed to bring lasting discredit. This fact,\r\nwhich seems strange to us, does not imply a lack of moral sense in\r\nthe community but rather the prevalence of standards alien to our\r\nown. It is only since the advent of Puritanism that sexual sins\r\nhave been placed at the head of the whole category. During the\r\nMiddle Ages, as always under Christianity, the most deadly sins\r\nwere pride, covetousness, slander and anger. These implied inherent\r\nmoral depravity, but \"illicit\" love was love outside the law of\r\nman, and did not of necessity and always involve moral guilt.\r\nChrist was Himself very gentle and compassionate with the sins of\r\nthe flesh but relentless in the case of the greater sins of the\r\nspirit. Puritanism overturned the balance of things, and by\r\nconcentrating its condemnation on sexual derelictions became blind\r\nto the greater sins of pride, avarice and anger. We have inherited\r\nthe prejudice without acquiring the abstention, but the Middle Ages\r\nhad a clearer sense of comparative values and they could forgive,\r\nor even ignore, the sin of Abélard and Héloïse when they could less\r\neasily excuse the sin of spiritual pride or deliberate cruelty.\r\nMoreover, these same Middle Ages believed very earnestly in the\r\nDivine forgiveness of sins for which there had been real repentance\r\nand honest effort at amendment. Abélard and Héloise had been\r\ngrievously punished, he himself had made every reparation that was\r\npossible, his penitence was charitably assumed, and therefore it\r\nwas not for society to condemn what God would mercifully forgive.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00027\"\u003eThe twelfth and thirteenth centuries were not an age of moral\r\nlaxity; ideals and standards and conduct were immeasurably higher\r\nthan they had been for five hundred years, higher than they were to\r\nbe in the centuries that followed the crest of Mediaevalism. It was\r\nhowever a time of enormous vitality, of throbbing energy that was\r\nconstantly bursting its bounds, and as well a time of personal\r\nliberty and freedom of action that would seem strange indeed to us\r\nin these days of endless legal restraint and inhibitions mitigated\r\nby revolt. There were few formal laws but there was \u003ci\u003eCustom\u003c/i\u003e which\r\nwas a sovereign law in itself, and above all there was the moral\r\nlaw of the Church, establishing its great fundamental principles\r\nbut leaving details to the working out of life itself. Behind the\r\nsin of Abélard lay his intolerable spiritual pride, his selfishness\r\nand his egotism, qualities that society at large did not recognize\r\nbecause of their devotion to his engaging personality and their\r\nadmiration for his dazzling intellectual gifts. Their idol had\r\nsinned, he had been savagely punished, he had repented; that was\r\nall there was about it and the question was at an end.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00028\"\u003eIn reading the Historia Calamitatum there is one consideration that\r\nsuggests itself that is subject for serious thought. Written as it\r\nwas some years after the great tragedy of his life, it was a\r\nportrait that somehow seems out of focus. We know that during his\r\nearly years in Paris Abélard was a bold and daring champion in the\r\nlists of dialectic; brilliant, persuasive, masculine to a degree;\r\nyet this self-portrait is of a man timid, suspicious, frightened of\r\nrealities, shadows, possibilities. He is in abject terror of\r\ncouncils, hidden enemies, even of his life. The tone is querulous,\r\neven peevish at times, and always the egotism and the pride\r\npersist, while he seems driven by the whip of desire for\r\nintellectual adventure into places where he shrinks from defending\r\nhimself, or is unable to do so. The antithesis is complete and one\r\nis driven to believe that the terrible mutilation to which he had\r\nbeen subjected had broken down his personality and left him in all\r\nthings less than man. His narrative is full of accusations against\r\nall manner of people, but it is not necessary to take all these\r\nliterally, for it is evident that his natural egotism, overlaid by\r\nthe circumstances of his calamity, produced an almost pathological\r\ncondition wherein suspicions became to him realities and terrors\r\nestablished facts.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00029\"\u003eIt is doubtful if Abélard should be ranked very high in the list of\r\nMediaeval philosophers. He was more a dialectician than a creative\r\nforce, and until the development of the episode with Héloïse he\r\nseems to have cared primarily for the excitement of debate, with\r\nsmall regard for the value or the subjects under discussion. As an\r\nintellectualist he had much to do with the subsequent abandonment\r\nof Plato in favour of Aristotle that was a mark of pure\r\nscholasticism, while the brilliancy of his dialectical method\r\nbecame a model for future generations. Afer the Calamity he turned\r\nfrom philosophy to theology and ethics and here he reveals\r\nqualities of nobility not evident before. Particularly does he\r\ninsist upon the fact that it is the subjective intention that\r\ndetermines the moral value of human actions even if it does not\r\nchange their essential character.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00030\"\u003eThe story of this philosophical soldier of fortune is a romance\r\nfrom beginning to end, a poignant human drama shot through with\r\npassion, adventure, pathos and tragedy. In a sense it is an epitome\r\nof the earlier Middle Ages and through it shines the bright light\r\nof an era of fervid living, of exciting adventure, of phenomenal\r\nintellectual force and of large and comprehensive liberty. As a\r\nsingle episode of passion it is not particularly distinguished\r\nexcept for the appealing personality of Héloïse; as a phase in the\r\ndevelopment of Christian philosophy it is of only secondary value.\r\nUnited in one, the two factors achieve a brilliant dramatic unity\r\nthat has made the story of Abélard and Héloïse immortal.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eHISTORIA CALAMITATUM\u003c/h3\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eFOREWORD\u003c/h3\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00033\"\u003eOften the hearts of men and women are stirred, as likewise they are\r\nsoothed in their sorrows, more by example than by words. And\r\ntherefore, because I too have known some consolation from speech\r\nhad with one who was a witness thereof, am I now minded to write of\r\nthe sufferings which have sprung out of my misfortunes, for the\r\neyes of one who, though absent, is of himself ever a consoler. This\r\nI do so that, in comparing your sorrows with mine, you may discover\r\nthat yours are in truth nought, or at the most but of small\r\naccount, and so shall you come to bear them more easily.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eCHAPTER I\u003c/h3\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ch5 id=\"id00035\"\u003eOF THE BIRTHPLACE OF PIERRE ABÉLARD AND OF HIS PARENTS\u003c/h5\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00036\"\u003eKnow, then, that I am come from a certain town which was built on\r\nthe way into lesser Brittany, distant some eight miles, as I think,\r\neastward from the city of Nantes, and in its own tongue called\r\nPalets. Such is the nature of that country, or, it may be, of them\r\nwho dwell there—for in truth they are quick in fancy—that my mind\r\nbent itself easily to the study of letters. Yet more, I had a\r\nfather who had won some smattering of letters before he had girded\r\non the soldier\u0027s belt. And so it came about that long afterwards\r\nhis love thereof was so strong that he saw to it that each son of\r\nhis should be taught in letters even earlier than in the management\r\nof arms. Thus indeed did it come to pass. And because I was his\r\nfirst born, and for that reason the more dear to him, he sought\r\nwith double diligence to have me wisely taught. For my part, the\r\nmore I went forward in the study of letters, and ever more easily,\r\nthe greater became the ardour of my devotion to them, until in\r\ntruth I was so enthralled by my passion for learning that, gladly\r\nleaving to my brothers the pomp of glory in arms, the right of\r\nheritage and all the honours that should have been mine as the\r\neldest born, I fled utterly from the court of Mars that I might win\r\nlearning in the bosom of Minerva. And since I found the armory of\r\nlogical reasoning more to my liking than the other forms of\r\nphilosophy, I exchanged all other weapons for these, and to the\r\nprizes of victory in war I preferred the battle of minds in\r\ndisputation. Thenceforth, journeying through many provinces, and\r\ndebating as I went, going whithersoever I heard that the study of\r\nmy chosen art most flourished, I became such an one as the\r\nPeripatetics.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eCHAPTER II\u003c/h3\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ch5 id=\"id00038\"\u003eOF THE PERSECUTION HE HAD FROM HIS MASTER WILLIAM OF CHAMPEAUX—OF\r\nHIS ADVENTURES AT MELUN, AT CORBEIL AND AT PARIS—OF HIS WITHDRAWAL\r\nFROM THE CITY OF THE PARISIANS TO MELUN, AND HIS RETURN TO MONT\r\nSTE. GENEVIÈVE—OF HIS JOURNEY TO HIS OLD HOME\u003c/h5\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00039\"\u003eI came at length to Paris, where above all in those days the art of\r\ndialectics was most flourishing, and there did I meet William of\r\nChampeaux, my teacher, a man most distinguished in his science both\r\nby his renown and by his true merit. With him I remained for some\r\ntime, at first indeed well liked of him; but later I brought him\r\ngreat grief, because I undertook to refute certain of his opinions,\r\nnot infrequently attacking him in disputation, and now and then in\r\nthese debates I was adjudged victor. Now this, to those among my\r\nfellow students who were ranked foremost, seemed all the more\r\ninsufferable because of my youth and the brief duration of my\r\nstudies.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00040\"\u003eOut of this sprang the beginning of my misfortunes, which have\r\nfollowed me even to the present day; the more widely my fame was\r\nspread abroad, the more bitter was the envy that was kindled\r\nagainst me. It was given out that I, presuming on my gifts far\r\nbeyond the warranty of my youth, was aspiring despite my tender,\r\nyears to the leadership of a school; nay, more, that I was making\r\nread the very place in which I would undertake this task, the place\r\nbeing none other than the castle of Melun, at that time a royal\r\nseat. My teacher himself had some foreknowledge of this, and tried\r\nto remove my school as far as possible from his own. Working in\r\nsecret, he sought in every way he could before I left his following\r\nto bring to nought the school I had planned and the place I had\r\nchosen for it. Since, however, in that very place he had many\r\nrivals, and some of them men of influence among the great ones of\r\nthe land, relying on their aid I won to the fulfillment of my wish;\r\nthe support of many was secured for me by reason of his own\r\nunconcealed envy. From this small inception of my school, my fame\r\nin the art of dialectics began to spread abroad, so that little by\r\nlittle the renown, not alone of those who had been my fellow\r\nstudents, but of our very teacher himself, grew dim and was like to\r\ndie out altogether. Thus it came about that, still more confident\r\nin myself, I moved my school as soon as I well might to the castle\r\nof Corbeil, which is hard by the city of Paris, for there I knew\r\nthere would be given more frequent chance for my assaults in our\r\nbattle of disputation.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00041\"\u003eNo long time thereafter I was smitten with a grievous illness,\r\nbrought upon me by my immoderate zeal for study. This illness\r\nforced me to turn homeward to my native province, and thus for some\r\nyears I was as if cut off from France. And yet, for that very\r\nreason, I was sought out all the more eagerly by those whose hearts\r\nwere troubled by the lore of dialectics. But after a few years had\r\npassed, and I was whole again from my sickness, I learned that my\r\nteacher, that same William Archdeacon of Paris, had changed his\r\nformer garb and joined an order of the regular clergy. This he had\r\ndone, or so men said, in order that he might be deemed more deeply\r\nreligious, and so might be elevated to a loftier rank in the\r\nprelacy, a thing which, in truth, very soon came to pass, for he\r\nwas made bishop of Châlons. Nevertheless, the garb he had donned by\r\nreason of his conversion did nought to keep him away either from\r\nthe city of Paris or from his wonted study of philosophy; and in\r\nthe very monastery wherein he had shut himself up for the sake of\r\nreligion he straightway set to teaching again after the same\r\nfashion as before.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00042\"\u003eTo him did I return, for I was eager to learn more of rhetoric from\r\nhis lips; and in the course of our many arguments on various\r\nmatters, I compelled him by most potent reasoning first to alter\r\nhis former opinion on the subject of the universals, and finally to\r\nabandon it altogether. Now, the basis of this old concept of his\r\nregarding the reality of universal ideas was that the same quality\r\nformed the essence alike of the abstract whole and of the\r\nindividuals which were its parts: in other words, that there could\r\nbe no essential differences among these individuals, all being\r\nalike save for such variety as might grow out of the many accidents\r\nof existence. Thereafter, however, he corrected this opinion, no\r\nlonger maintaining that the same quality was the essence of all\r\nthings, but that, rather, it manifested itself in them through\r\ndiverse ways. This problem of universals is ever the most vexed one\r\namong logicians, to such a degree, indeed, that even Porphyry,\r\nwriting in his \"Isagoge\" regarding universals, dared not attempt a\r\nfinal pronouncement thereon, saying rather: \"This is the deepest of\r\nall problems of its kind.\" Wherefore it followed that when William\r\nhad first revised and then finally abandoned altogether his views\r\non this one subject, his lecturing sank into such a state of\r\nnegligent reasoning that it could scarce be called lecturing on the\r\nscience of dialectics at all; it was as if all his science had been\r\nbound up in this one question of the nature of universals.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00043\"\u003eThus it came about that my teaching won such strength and authority\r\nthat even those who before had clung most vehemently to my former\r\nmaster, and most bitterly attacked my doctrines, now flocked to my\r\nschool. The very man who had succeeded to my master\u0027s chair in the\r\nParis school offered me his post, in order that he might put\r\nhimself under my tutelage along with all the rest, and this in the\r\nvery place where of old his master and mine had reigned. And when,\r\nin so short a time, my master saw me directing the study of\r\ndialectics there, it is not easy to find words to tell with what\r\nenvy he was consumed or with what pain he was tormented. He could\r\nnot long, in truth, bear the anguish of what he felt to be his\r\nwrongs, and shrewdly he attacked me that he might drive me forth.\r\nAnd because there was nought in my conduct whereby he could come at\r\nme openly, he tried to steal away the school by launching the\r\nvilest calumnies against him who had yielded his post to me, and by\r\nputting in his place a certain rival of mine. So then I returned to\r\nMelun, and set up my school there as before; and the more openly\r\nhis envy pursued me, the greater was the authority it conferred\r\nupon me. Even so held the poet: \"Jealousy aims at the peaks; the\r\nwinds storm the loftiest summits.\" (Ovid: \"Remedy for Love,\" I, 369.)\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00044\"\u003eNot long thereafter, when William became aware of the fact that\r\nalmost all his students were holding grave doubts as to his\r\nreligion, and were whispering earnestly among themselves about his\r\nconversion, deeming that he had by no means abandoned this world,\r\nhe withdrew himself and his brotherhood, together with his\r\nstudents, to a certain estate far distant from the city. Forthwith\r\nI returned from Melun to Paris, hoping for peace from him in the\r\nfuture. But since, as I have said, he had caused my place to be\r\noccupied by a rival of mine, I pitched the camp, as it were, of my\r\nschool outside the city on Mont Ste. Geneviève. Thus I was as one\r\nlaying siege to him who had taken possession of my post. No sooner\r\nhad my master heard of this than he brazenly returned post haste to\r\nthe city, bringing back with him such students as he could, and\r\nreinstating his brotherhood in their for mer monastery, much as if\r\nhe would free his soldiery, whom he had deserted, from my blockade.\r\nIn truth, though, if it was his purpose to bring them succour, he\r\ndid nought but hurt them. Before that time my rival had indeed had\r\na certain number of students, of one sort and another, chiefly by\r\nreason of his lectures on Priscian, in which he was considered of\r\ngreat authority. After our master had returned, however, he lost\r\nnearly all of these followers, and thus was compelled to give up\r\nthe direction of the school. Not long thereafter, apparently\r\ndespairing further of worldly fame, he was converted to the\r\nmonastic life.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00045\"\u003eFollowing the return of our master to the city, the combats in\r\ndisputation which my scholars waged both with him himself and with\r\nhis pupils, and the successes which fortune gave to us, and above\r\nall to me, in these wars, you have long since learned of through\r\nyour own experience. The boast of Ajax, though I speak it more\r\ntemperately, I still am bold enough to make:\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00046\"\u003e \"… if fain you would learn now\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\r\n How victory crowned the battle, by him was\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\r\n I never vanquished.\"\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\r\n (Ovid, \"Metamorphoses,\" XIII, 89.)\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00047\"\u003eBut even were I to be silent, the fact proclaims itself, and its\r\noutcome reveals the truth regarding it.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00048\"\u003eWhile these things were happening, it became needful for me again\r\nto repair to my old home, by reason of my dear mother, Lucia, for\r\nafter the conversion of my father, Berengarius, to the monastic\r\nlife, she so ordered her affairs as to do likewise. When all this\r\nhad been completed, I returned to France, above all in order that I\r\nmight study theology, since now my oft-mentioned teacher, William,\r\nwas active in the episcopate of Châlons. In this held of learning\r\nAnselm of Laon, who was his teacher therein, had for long years\r\nenjoyed the greatest renown.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eCHAPTER III\u003c/h3\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ch5 id=\"id00050\"\u003eOF HOW HE CAME TO LAON TO SEEK ANSELM AS TEACHER\u003c/h5\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00051\"\u003eSought out, therefore, this same venerable man, whose fame, in\r\ntruth, was more the result of long-established custom than of the\r\npotency of his own talent or intellect. If any one came to him\r\nimpelled by doubt on any subject, he went away more doubtful still.\r\nHe was wonderful, indeed, in the eyes of these who only listened to\r\nhim, but those who asked him questions perforce held him as nought.\r\nHe had a miraculous flock of words, but they were contemptible in\r\nmeaning and quite void of reason. When he kindled a fire, he filled\r\nhis house with smoke and illumined it not at all. He was a tree\r\nwhich seemed noble to those who gazed upon its leaves from afar,\r\nbut to those who came nearer and examined it more closely was\r\nrevealed its barrenness. When, therefore, I had come to this tree\r\nthat I might pluck the fruit thereof, I discovered that it was\r\nindeed the fig tree which Our Lord cursed (Matthew xxi, 19; Mark\r\nxi, 13), or that ancient oak to which Lucan likened Pompey, saying:\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00052\"\u003e \"… he stands, the shade of a name once mighty,\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\r\n Like to the towering oak in the midst of the fruitful field.\"\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\r\n (Lucan, \"Pharsalia,\" IV, 135.)\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00053\"\u003eIt was not long before I made this discovery, and stretched myself\r\nlazily in the shade of that same tree. I went to his lectures less\r\nand less often, a thing which some among his eminent followers took\r\nsorely to heart, because they interpreted it as a mark of contempt\r\nfor so illustrious a teacher. Thenceforth they secretly sought to\r\ninfluence him against me, and by their vile insinuations made me\r\nhated of him. It chanced, moreover, that one day, after the\r\nexposition of certain texts, we scholars were jesting among\r\nourselves, and one of them, seeking to draw me out, asked me what I\r\nthought of the lectures on the Books of Scripture. I, who had as\r\nyet studied only the sciences, replied that following such lectures\r\nseemed to me most useful in so far as the salvation of the soul was\r\nconcerned, but that it appeared quite extraordinary to me that\r\neducated persons should not be able to understand the sacred books\r\nsimply by studying them themselves, together with the glosses\r\nthereon, and without the aid of any teacher. Most of those who were\r\npresent mocked at me, and asked whether I myself could do as I had\r\nsaid, or whether I would dare to undertake it. I answered that if\r\nthey wished, I was ready to try it. Forthwith they cried out and\r\njeered all the more. \"Well and good,\" said they; \"we agree to the\r\ntest. Pick out and give us an exposition of some doubtful passage\r\nin the Scriptures, so that we can put this boast of yours to the\r\nproof.\" And they all chose that most obscure prophecy of Ezekiel.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00054\"\u003eI accepted the challenge, and invited them to attend a lecture on\r\nthe very next day. Whereupon they undertook to give me good advice,\r\nsaying that I should by no means make undue haste in so important a\r\nmatter, but that I ought to devote a much loner space to working\r\nout my exposition and offsetting my inexperience by diligent toil.\r\nTo this I replied indignantly that it was my wont to win success,\r\nnot by routine, but by ability. I added that I would abandon the\r\ntest altogether unless they would agree not to put off their\r\nattendance at my lecture. In truth at this first lecture of mine\r\nonly a few were present, for it seemed quite absurd to all of them\r\nthat I, hitherto so inexperienced in discussing the Scriptures,\r\nshould attempt the thing so hastily. However, this lecture gave\r\nsuch satisfaction to all those who heard it that they spread its\r\npraises abroad with notable enthusiasm, and thus compelled me to\r\ncontinue my interpretation of the sacred text. When word of this\r\nwas bruited about, those who had stayed away from the first lecture\r\ncame eagerly, some to the second and more to the third, and all of\r\nthem were eager to write down the glosses which I had begun on the\r\nfirst day, so as to have them from the very beginning.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eCHAPTER IV\u003c/h3\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ch5 id=\"id00056\"\u003eOF THE PERSECUTION HE HAD FROM HIS TEACHER ANSELM\u003c/h5\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00057\"\u003eNow this venerable man of whom I have spoken was acutely smitten\r\nwith envy, and straightway incited, as I have already mentioned, by\r\nthe insinuations of sundry persons, began to persecute me for my\r\nlecturing on the Scriptures no less bitterly than my former master,\r\nWilliam, had done for my work in philosophy. At that time there\r\nwere in this old man\u0027s school two who were considered far to excel\r\nall the others: Alberic of Rheims and Lotulphe the Lombard. The\r\nbetter opinion these two held of themselves, the more they were\r\nincensed against me. Chiefly at their suggestion, as it afterwards\r\ntranspired, yonder venerable coward had the impudence to forbid me\r\nto carry on any further in his school the work of preparing glosses\r\nwhich I had thus begun. The pretext he alleged was that if by\r\nchance in the course of this work I should write anything\r\ncontaining blunders—as was likely enough in view of my lack of\r\ntraining—the thing might be imputed to him. When this came to the\r\nears of his scholars, they were filled with indignation at so\r\nundisguised a manifestation of spite, the like of which had never\r\nbeen directed against any one before. The more obvious this rancour\r\nbecame, the more it redounded to my honour, and his persecution did\r\nnought save to make me more famous.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eCHAPTER V\u003c/h3\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ch5 id=\"id00059\"\u003eOF HOW HE RETURNED TO PARIS AND FINISHED THE GLOSSES WHICH HE HAD\r\nBEGUN AT LAON\u003c/h5\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00060\"\u003eAnd so, after a few days, I returned to Paris, and there for\r\nseveral years I peacefully directed the school which formerly had\r\nbeen destined for me, nay, even offered to me, but from which I had\r\nbeen driven out. At the very outset of my work there, I set about\r\ncompleting the glosses on Ezekiel which I had begun at Laon. These\r\nproved so satisfactory to all who read them that they came to\r\nbelieve me no less adept in lecturing on theology than I had proved\r\nmyself to be in the held of philosophy. Thus my school was notably\r\nincreased in size by reason of my lectures on subjects of both\r\nthese kinds, and the amount of financial profit as well as glory\r\nwhich it brought me cannot be concealed from you, for the matter\r\nwas widely talked of. But prosperity always puffs up the foolish,\r\nand worldly comfort enervates the soul, rendering it an easy prey\r\nto carnal temptations. Thus I, who by this time had come to regard\r\nmyself as the only philosopher remaining in the whole world, and\r\nhad ceased to fear any further disturbance of my peace, began to\r\nloosen the rein on my desires, although hitherto I had always lived\r\nin the utmost continence. And the greater progress I made in my\r\nlecturing on philosophy or theology, the more I departed alike from\r\nthe practice of the philosophers and the spirit of the divines in\r\nthe uncleanness of my life. For it is well known, methinks, that\r\nphilosophers, and still more those who have devoted their lives to\r\narousing the love of sacred study, have been strong above all else\r\nin the beauty of chastity.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00061\"\u003eThus did it come to pass that while I was utterly absorbed in pride\r\nand sensuality, divine grace, the cure for both diseases, was\r\nforced upon me, even though I, forsooth, would fain have shunned\r\nit. First was I punished for my sensuality, and then for my pride.\r\nFor my sensuality I lost those things whereby I practiced it; for\r\nmy pride, engendered in me by my knowledge of letters—and it is\r\neven as the Apostle said: \"Knowledge puffeth itself up\" (I Cor.\r\nviii, 1)—I knew the humiliation of seeing burned the very book in\r\nwhich I most gloried. And now it is my desire that you should know\r\nthe stories of these two happenings, understanding them more truly\r\nfrom learning the very facts than from hearing what is spoken of\r\nthem, and in the order in which they came about. Because I had ever\r\nheld in abhorrence the foulness of prostitutes, because I had\r\ndiligently kept myself from all excesses and from association with\r\nthe women of noble birth who attended the school, because I knew so\r\nlittle of the common talk of ordinary people, perverse and subtly\r\nflattering chance gave birth to an occasion for casting me lightly\r\ndown from the heights of my own exaltation. Nay, in such case not\r\neven divine goodness could redeem one who, having been so proud,\r\nwas brought to such shame, were it not for the blessed gift of\r\ngrace.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eCHAPTER VI\u003c/h3\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ch5 id=\"id00063\"\u003eOF HOW, BROUGHT LOW BY HIS LOVE FOR HÉLOISE, HE WAS WOUNDED IN BODY\r\nAND SOUL\u003c/h5\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00064\"\u003eNow there dwelt in that same city of Paris a certain young girl\r\nnamed Héloïse, the niece of a canon who was called Fulbert. Her\r\nuncle\u0027s love for her was equalled only by his desire that she\r\nshould have the best education which he could possibly procure for\r\nher. Of no mean beauty, she stood out above all by reason of her\r\nabundant knowledge of letters. Now this virtue is rare among women,\r\nand for that very reason it doubly graced the maiden, and made her\r\nthe most worthy of renown in the entire kingdom. It was this young\r\ngirl whom I, after carefully considering all those qualities which\r\nare wont to attract lovers, determined to unite with myself in the\r\nbonds of love, and indeed the thing seemed to me very easy to be\r\ndone. So distinguished was my name, and I possessed such advantages\r\nof youth and comeliness, that no matter what woman I might favour\r\nwith my love, I dreaded rejection of none. Then, too, I believed\r\nthat I could win the maiden\u0027s consent all the more easily by reason\r\nof her knowledge of letters and her zeal therefor; so, even if we\r\nwere parted, we might yet be together in thought with the aid of\r\nwritten messages. Perchance, too, we might be able to write more\r\nboldly than we could speak, and thus at all times could we live in\r\njoyous intimacy.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00065\"\u003eThus, utterly aflame with my passion for this maiden, I sought to\r\ndiscover means whereby I might have daily and familiar speech with\r\nher, thereby the more easily to win her consent. For this purpose I\r\npersuaded the girl\u0027s uncle, with the aid of some of his friends, to\r\ntake me into his household—for he dwelt hard by my school—in\r\nreturn for the payment of a small sum. My pretext for this was that\r\nthe care of my own household was a serious handicap to my studies,\r\nand likewise burdened me with an expense far greater than I could\r\nafford. Now, he was a man keen in avarice, and likewise he was most\r\ndesirous for his niece that her study of letters should ever go\r\nforward, so, for these two reasons, I easily won his consent to the\r\nfulfillment of my wish, for he was fairly agape for my money, and\r\nat the same time believed that his niece would vastly benefit by my\r\nteaching. More even than this, by his own earnest entreaties he\r\nfell in with my desires beyond anything I had dared to hope,\r\nopening the way for my love; for he entrusted her wholly to my\r\nguidance, begging me to give her instruction whensoever I might be\r\nfree from the duties of my school, no matter whether by day or by\r\nnight, and to punish her sternly if ever I should find her\r\nnegligent of her tasks. In all this the man\u0027s simplicity was\r\nnothing short of astounding to me; I should not have been more\r\nsmitten with wonder if he had entrusted a tender lamb to the care\r\nof a ravenous wolf. When he had thus given her into my charge, not\r\nalone to be taught but even to be disciplined, what had he done\r\nsave to give free scope to my desires, and to offer me every\r\nopportunity, even if I had not sought it, to bend her to my will\r\nwith threats and blows if I failed to do so with caresses? There\r\nwere, however, two things which particularly served to allay any\r\nfoul suspicion: his own love for his niece, and my former\r\nreputation for continence.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00066\"\u003eWhy should I say more: We were united first in the dwelling that\r\nsheltered our love, and then in the hearts that burned with it.\r\nUnder the pretext of study we spent our hours in the happiness of\r\nlove, and learning held out to us the secret opportunities that our\r\npassion craved. Our speech was more of love than of the book which\r\nlay open before us; our kisses far outnumbered our reasoned words.\r\nOur hands sought less the book than each other\u0027s bosoms; love drew\r\nour eyes together far more than the lesson drew them to the pages\r\nof our text. In order that there might be no suspicion, there were,\r\nindeed, sometimes blows, but love gave them, not anger; they were\r\nthe marks, not of wrath, but of a tenderness surpassing the most\r\nfragrant balm in sweetness. What followed? No degree in love\u0027s\r\nprogress was left untried by our passion, and if love itself could\r\nimagine any wonder as yet unknown, we discovered it. And our\r\ninexperience of such delights made us all the more ardent in our\r\npursuit of them, so that our thirst for one another was still\r\nunquenched.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00067\"\u003eIn measure as this passionate rapture absorbed me more and more, I\r\ndevoted ever less time to philosophy and to the work of the school.\r\nIndeed it became loathsome to me to go to the school or to linger\r\nthere; the labour, moreover, was very burdensome, since my nights\r\nwere vigils of love and my days of study. My lecturing became\r\nutterly careless and lukewarm; I did nothing because of\r\ninspiration, but everything merely as a matter of habit. I had\r\nbecome nothing more than a reciter of my former discoveries, and\r\nthough I still wrote poems, they dealt with love, not with the\r\nsecrets of philosophy. Of these songs you yourself well know how\r\nsome have become widely known and have been sung in many lands,\r\nchiefly, methinks, by those who delighted in the things of this\r\nworld. As for the sorrow, the groans, the lamentations of my\r\nstudents when they perceived the preoccupation, nay, rather the\r\nchaos, of my mind, it is hard even to imagine them.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00068\"\u003eA thing so manifest could deceive only a few, no one, methinks,\r\nsave him whose shame it chiefly bespoke, the girl\u0027s uncle, Fulbert.\r\nThe truth was often enough hinted to him, and by many persons, but\r\nhe could not believe it, partly, as I have said, by reason of his\r\nboundless love for his niece, and partly because of the well-known\r\ncontinence of my previous life. Indeed we do not easily suspect\r\nshame in those whom we most cherish, nor can there be the blot of\r\nfoul suspicion on devoted love. Of this St. Jerome in his epistle\r\nto Sabinianus (Epist. 48) says: \"We are wont to be the last to know\r\nthe evils of our own households, and to be ignorant of the sins of\r\nour children and our wives, though our neighbours sing them aloud.\"\r\nBut no matter how slow a matter may be in disclosing itself, it is\r\nsure to come forth at last, nor is it easy to hide from one what is\r\nknown to all. So, after the lapse of several months, did it happen\r\nwith us. Oh, how great was the uncle\u0027s grief when he learned the\r\ntruth, and how bitter was the sorrow of the lovers when we were\r\nforced to part! With what shame was I overwhelmed, with what\r\ncontrition smitten because of the blow which had fallen on her I\r\nloved, and what a tempest of misery burst over her by reason of my\r\ndisgrace! Each grieved most, not for himself, but for the other.\r\nEach sought to allay, not his own sufferings, but those of the one\r\nhe loved. The very sundering of our bodies served but to link our\r\nsouls closer together; the plentitude of the love which was denied\r\nto us inflamed us more than ever. Once the first wildness of shame\r\nhad passed, it left us more shameless than before, and as shame\r\ndied within us the cause of it seemed to us ever more desirable.\r\nAnd so it chanced with us as, in the stories that the poets tell,\r\nit once happened with Mars and Venus when they were caught together.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00069\"\u003eIt was not long after this that Héloïse found that she was\r\npregnant, and of this she wrote to me in the utmost exultation,\r\nat the same time asking me to consider what had best be done.\r\nAccordingly, on a night when her uncle was absent, we carried out\r\nthe plan we had determined on, and I stole her secretly away from\r\nher uncle\u0027s house, sending her without delay to my own country. She\r\nremained there with my sister until she gave birth to a son, whom\r\nshe named Astrolabe. Meanwhile her uncle, after his return, was\r\nalmost mad with grief; only one who had then seen him could rightly\r\nguess the burning agony of his sorrow and the bitterness of his\r\nshame. What steps to take against me, or what snares to set for me,\r\nhe did not know. If he should kill me or do me some bodily hurt, he\r\nfeared greatly lest his dear-loved niece should be made to suffer\r\nfor it among my kinsfolk. He had no power to seize me and imprison\r\nme somewhere against my will, though I make no doubt he would have\r\ndone so quickly enough had he been able or dared, for I had taken\r\nmeasures to guard against any such attempt.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00070\"\u003eAt length, however, in pity for his boundless grief, and bitterly\r\nblaming myself for the suffering which my love had brought upon him\r\nthrough the baseness of the deception I had practiced, I went to\r\nhim to entreat his forgiveness, promising to make any amends that\r\nhe himself might decree. I pointed out that what had happened could\r\nnot seem incredible to any one who had ever felt the power of love,\r\nor who remembered how, from the very beginning of the human race,\r\nwomen had cast down even the noblest men to utter ruin. And in\r\norder to make amends even beyond his extremest hope, I offered to\r\nmarry her whom I had seduced, provided only the thing could be kept\r\nsecret, so that I might suffer no loss of reputation thereby. To\r\nthis he gladly assented, pledging his own faith and that of his\r\nkindred, and sealing with kisses the pact which I had sought of\r\nhim—and all this that he might the more easily betray me.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eCHAPTER VII\u003c/h3\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ch5 id=\"id00072\"\u003eOF THE ARGUMENTS OF HÉLOÏSE AGAINST WEDLOCK—OF HOW NONE THE LESS\r\nHE MADE HER HIS WIFE\u003c/h5\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00073\"\u003eForthwith I repaired to my own country, and brought back thence my\r\nmistress, that I might make her my wife. She, however, most\r\nviolently disapproved of this, and for two chief reasons: the\r\ndanger thereof, and the disgrace which it would bring upon me. She\r\nswore that her uncle would never be appeased by such satisfaction\r\nas this, as, indeed, afterwards proved only too true. She asked how\r\nshe could ever glory in me if she should make me thus inglorious,\r\nand should shame herself along with me. What penalties, she said,\r\nwould the world rightly demand of her if she should rob it of so\r\nshining a light! What curses would follow such a loss to the\r\nChurch, what tears among the philosophers would result from such a\r\nmarriage! How unfitting, how lamentable it would be for me, whom\r\nnature had made for the whole world, to devote myself to one woman\r\nsolely, and to subject myself to such humiliation! She vehemently\r\nrejected this marriage, which she felt would be in every way\r\nignominious and burdensome to me.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00074\"\u003eBesides dwelling thus on the disgrace to me, she reminded me of the\r\nhardships of married life, to the avoidance of which the Apostle\r\nexhorts us, saying: \"Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife.\r\nBut and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry,\r\nshe hath not sinned. Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the\r\nflesh: but I spare you\" (I Cor. vii, 27). And again: \"But I would\r\nhave you to be free from cares\" (I Cor. vii, 32). But if I would\r\nheed neither the counsel of the Apostle nor the exhortations of the\r\nsaints regarding this heavy yoke of matrimony, she bade me at least\r\nconsider the advice of the philosophers, and weigh carefully what\r\nhad been written on this subject either by them or concerning their\r\nlives. Even the saints themselves have often and earnestly spoken\r\non this subject for the purpose of warning us. Thus St. Jerome,\r\nin his first book against Jovinianus, makes Theophrastus set forth\r\nin great detail the intolerable annoyances and the endless\r\ndisturbances of married life, demonstrating with the most\r\nconvincing arguments that no wise man should ever have a wife, and\r\nconcluding his reasons for this philosophic exhortation with these\r\nwords: \"Who among Christians would not be overwhelmed by such\r\narguments as these advanced by Theophrastus?\"\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00075\"\u003eAgain, in the same work, St. Jerome tells how Cicero, asked by\r\nHircius after his divorce of Terentia whether he would marry the\r\nsister of Hircius, replied that he would do no such thing, saying\r\nthat he could not devote himself to a wife and to philosophy at the\r\nsame time. Cicero does not, indeed, precisely speak of \"devoting\r\nhimself,\" but he does add that he did not wish to undertake\r\nanything which might rival his study of philosophy in its demands\r\nupon him.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00076\"\u003eThen, turning from the consideration of such hindrances to the\r\nstudy of philosophy, Héloïse bade me observe what were the\r\nconditions of honourable wedlock. What possible concord could there\r\nbe between scholars and domestics, between authors and cradles,\r\nbetween books or tablets and distaffs, between the stylus or the\r\npen and the spindle? What man, intent on his religious or\r\nphilosophical meditations, can possibly endure the whining of\r\nchildren, the lullabies of the nurse seeking to quiet them, or the\r\nnoisy confusion of family life? Who can endure the continual\r\nuntidiness of children? The rich, you may reply, can do this,\r\nbecause they have palaces or houses containing many rooms, and\r\nbecause their wealth takes no thought of expense and protects them\r\nfrom daily worries. But to this the answer is that the condition of\r\nphilosophers is by no means that of the wealthy, nor can those\r\nwhose minds are occupied with riches and worldly cares find time\r\nfor religious or philosophical study. For this reason the renowned\r\nphilosophers of old utterly despised the world, fleeing from its\r\nperils rather than reluctantly giving them up, and denied\r\nthemselves all its delights in order that they might repose in the\r\nembraces of philosophy alone. One of them, and the greatest of all,\r\nSeneca, in his advice to Lucilius, says: \"Philosophy is not a thing\r\nto be studied only in hours of leisure; we must give up everything\r\nelse to devote ourselves to it, for no amount of time is really\r\nsufficient thereto\" (Epist. 73).\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00077\"\u003eIt matters little, she pointed out, whether one abandons the study\r\nof philosophy completely or merely interrupts it, for it can never\r\nremain at the point where it was thus interrupted. All other\r\noccupations must be resisted; it is vain to seek to adjust life to\r\ninclude them, and they must simply be eliminated. This view is\r\nmaintained, for example, in the love of God by those among us who\r\nare truly called monastics, and in the love of wisdom by all those\r\nwho have stood out among men as sincere philosophers. For in every\r\nrace, gentiles or Jews or Christians, there have always been a few\r\nwho excelled their fellows in faith or in the purity of their\r\nlives, and who were set apart from the multitude by their\r\ncontinence or by their abstinence from worldly pleasures.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00078\"\u003eAmong the Jews of old there were the Nazarites, who consecrated\r\nthemselves to the Lord, some of them the sons of the prophet Elias\r\nand others the followers of Eliseus, the monks of whom, on the\r\nauthority of St. Jerome (Epist. 4 and 13), we read in the Old\r\nTestament. More recently there were the three philosophical sects\r\nwhich Josephus defines in his Book of Antiquities (xviii, 2),\r\ncalling them the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Essenes. In our\r\ntimes, furthermore, there are the monks who imitate either the\r\ncommunal life of the Apostles or the earlier and solitary life of\r\nJohn. Among the gentiles there are, as has been said, the\r\nphilosophers. Did they not apply the name of wisdom or philosophy\r\nas much to the religion of life as to the pursuit of learning, as\r\nwe find from the origin of the word itself, and likewise from the\r\ntestimony of the saints?\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00079\"\u003eThere is a passage on this subject in the eighth book of St.\r\nAugustine\u0027s \"City of God,\" wherein he distinguishes between the\r\nvarious schools of philosophy. \"The Italian school,\" he says, \"had\r\nas its founder Pythagoras of Samos, who, it is said, originated the\r\nvery word \u0027philosophy.\u0027 Before his time those who were regarded as\r\nconspicuous for the praiseworthiness of their lives were called\r\nwise men, but he, on being asked of his profession, replied that he\r\nwas a philosopher, that is to say a student or a lover of wisdom,\r\nbecause it seemed to him unduly boastful to call himself a wise\r\nman.\" In this passage, therefore, when the phrase \"conspicuous for\r\nthe praiseworthiness of their lives\" is used, it is evident that\r\nthe wise, in other words the philosophers, were so called less\r\nbecause of their erudition than by reason of their virtuous lives.\r\nIn what sobriety and continence these men lived it is not for me to\r\nprove by illustration, lest I should seem to instruct Minerva\r\nherself.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00080\"\u003eNow, she added, if laymen and gentiles, bound by no profession of\r\nreligion, lived after this fashion, what ought you, a cleric and a\r\ncanon, to do in order not to prefer base voluptuousness to your\r\nsacred duties, to prevent this Charybdis from sucking you down\r\nheadlong, and to save yourself from being plunged shamelessly and\r\nirrevocably into such filth as this? If you care nothing for your\r\nprivileges as a cleric, at least uphold your dignity as a\r\nphilosopher. If you scorn the reverence due to God, let regard for\r\nyour reputation temper your shamelessness. Remember that Socrates\r\nwas chained to a wife, and by what a filthy accident he himself\r\npaid for this blot on philosophy, in order that others thereafter\r\nmight be made more cautious by his example. Jerome thus mentions\r\nthis affair, writing about Socrates in his first book against\r\nJovinianus: \"Once when he was withstanding a storm of reproaches\r\nwhich Xantippe was hurling at him from an upper story, he was\r\nsuddenly drenched with foul slops; wiping his head, he said only,\r\n\u0027I knew there would be a shower after all that thunder.\u0027\"\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00081\"\u003eHer final argument was that it would be dangerous for me to take\r\nher back to Paris, and that it would be far sweeter for her to be\r\ncalled my mistress than to be known as my wife; nay, too, that\r\nthis would be more honourable for me as well. In such case, she\r\nsaid, love alone would hold me to her, and the strength of the\r\nmarriage chain would not constrain us. Even if we should by chance\r\nbe parted from time to time, the joy of our meetings would be all\r\nthe sweeter by reason of its rarity. But when she found that she\r\ncould not convince me or dissuade me from my folly by these and\r\nlike arguments, and because she could not bear to offend me, with\r\ngrievous sighs and tears she made an end of her resistance, saying:\r\n\"Then there is no more left but this, that in our doom the sorrow\r\nyet to come shall be no less than the love we two have already\r\nknown.\" Nor in this, as now the whole world knows, did she lack the\r\nspirit of prophecy.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00082\"\u003eSo, after our little son was born, we left him in my sister\u0027s care,\r\nand secretly returned to Paris. A few days later, in the early\r\nmorning, having kept our nocturnal vigil of prayer unknown to all\r\nin a certain church, we were united there in the benediction of\r\nwedlock, her uncle and a few friends of his and mine being present.\r\nWe departed forthwith stealthily and by separate ways, nor\r\nthereafter did we see each other save rarely and in private, thus\r\nstriving our utmost to conceal what we had done. But her uncle and\r\nthose of his household, seeking solace for their disgrace, began to\r\ndivulge the story of our marriage, and thereby to violate the\r\npledge they had given me on this point. Héloïse, on the contrary,\r\ndenounced her own kin and swore that they were speaking the most\r\nabsolute lies. Her uncle, aroused to fury thereby, visited her\r\nrepeatedly with punishments. No sooner had I learned this than I\r\nsent her to a convent of nuns at Argenteuil, not far from Paris,\r\nwhere she herself had been brought up and educated as a young girl.\r\nI had them make ready for her all the garments of a nun, suitable\r\nfor the life of a convent, excepting only the veil, and these I\r\nbade her put on.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00083\"\u003eWhen her uncle and his kinsmen heard of this, they were convinced\r\nthat now I had completely played them false and had rid myself\r\nforever of Héloïse by forcing her to become a nun. Violently\r\nincensed, they laid a plot against me, and one night, while I, all\r\nunsuspecting, was asleep in a secret room in my lodgings, they\r\nbroke in with the help of one of my servants, whom they had bribed.\r\nThere they had vengeance on me with a most cruel and most shameful\r\npunishment, such as astounded the whole world, for they cut off\r\nthose parts of my body with which I had done that which was the\r\ncause of their sorrow. This done, straightway they fled, but two of\r\nthem were captured, and suffered the loss of their eyes and their\r\ngenital organs. One of these two was the aforesaid servant, who,\r\neven while he was still in my service, had been led by his avarice\r\nto betray me.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eCHAPTER VIII\u003c/h3\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ch5 id=\"id00085\"\u003eOF THE SUFFERING OF HIS BODY—OF HOW HE BECAME A MONK IN THE\r\nMONASTERY OF ST. DENIS AND HÉLOISE A NUN AT ARGENTEUIL\u003c/h5\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00086\"\u003eWhen morning came the whole city was assembled before my dwelling.\r\nIt is difficult, nay, impossible, for words of mine to describe the\r\namazement which bewildered them, the lamentations they uttered, the\r\nuproar with which they harassed me, or the grief with which they\r\nincreased my own suffering. Chiefly the clerics, and above all my\r\nscholars, tortured me with their intolerable lamentations and\r\noutcries, so that I suffered more intensely from their compassion\r\nthan from the pain of my wound. In truth I felt the disgrace more\r\nthan the hurt to my body, and was more afflicted with shame than\r\nwith pain. My incessant thought was of the renown in which I had so\r\nmuch delighted, now brought low, nay, utterly blotted out, so\r\nswiftly by an evil chance. I saw, too, how justly God had punished\r\nme in that very part of my body whereby I had sinned. I perceived\r\nthat there was indeed justice in my betrayal by him whom I had\r\nmyself already betrayed; and then I thought how eagerly my rivals\r\nwould seize upon this manifestation of justice, how this disgrace\r\nwould bring bitter and enduring grief to my kindred and my friends,\r\nand how the tale of this amazing outrage would spread to the very\r\nends of the earth.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00087\"\u003eWhat path lay open to me thereafter? How could I ever again hold up\r\nmy head among men, when every finger should be pointed at me in\r\nscorn, every tongue speak my blistering shame, and when I should be\r\na monstrous spectacle to all eyes? I was overwhelmed by the\r\nremembrance that, according to the dread letter of the law, God\r\nholds eunuchs in such abomination that men thus maimed are\r\nforbidden to enter a church, even as the unclean and filthy; nay,\r\neven beasts in such plight were not acceptable as sacrifices. Thus\r\nin Leviticus (xxii, 24) is it said: \"Ye shall not offer unto the\r\nLord that which hath its stones bruised, or crushed, or broken, or\r\ncut.\" And in Deuteronomy (xxiii, 1), \"He that is wounded in the\r\nstones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the\r\ncongregation of the Lord.\"\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00088\"\u003eI must confess that in my misery it was the overwhelming sense of\r\nmy disgrace rather than any ardour for conversion to the religious\r\nlife that drove me to seek the seclusion of the monastic cloister.\r\nHéloïse had already, at my bidding, taken the veil and entered a\r\nconvent. Thus it was that we both put on the sacred garb, I in the\r\nabbey of St. Denis, and she in the convent of Argenteuil, of which\r\nI have already spoken. She, I remember well, when her fond friends\r\nsought vainly to deter her from submitting her fresh youth to the\r\nheavy and almost intolerable yoke of monastic life, sobbing and\r\nweeping replied in the words of Cornelia:\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00089\"\u003e \"… O husband most noble,\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\r\n Who ne\u0027er shouldst have shared my couch! Has fortune such power\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\r\nTo smite so lofty a head? Why then was I wedded\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\r\nOnly to bring thee to woe? Receive now my sorrow,\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\r\nThe price I so gladly pay.\"\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\r\n (Lucan, \"Pharsalia,\" viii, 94.)\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00090\"\u003eWith these words on her lips did she go forthwith to the altar, and\r\nlifted therefrom the veil, which had been blessed by the bishop,\r\nand before them all she took the vows of the religious life. For my\r\npart, scarcely had I recovered from my wound when clerics sought me\r\nin great numbers, endlessly beseeching both my abbot and me myself\r\nthat now, since I was done with learning for the sake of gain or\r\nrenown, I should turn to it for the sole love of God. They bade me\r\ncare diligently for the talent which God had committed to my\r\nkeeping (Matthew, xxv, 15), since surely He would demand it back\r\nfrom me with interest. It was their plea that, inasmuch as of old I\r\nhad laboured chiefly in behalf of the rich, I should now devote\r\nmyself to the teaching of the poor. Therein above all should I\r\nperceive how it was the hand of God that had touched me, when I\r\nshould devote my life to the study of letters in freedom from the\r\nsnares of the flesh and withdrawn from the tumultuous life of this\r\nworld. Thus, in truth, should I become a philosopher less of this\r\nworld than of God.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00091\"\u003eThe abbey, however, to which I had betaken myself was utterly\r\nworldly and in its life quite scandalous. The abbot himself was as\r\nfar below his fellows in his way of living and in the foulness of\r\nhis reputation as he was above them in priestly rank. This\r\nintolerable state of things I often and vehemently denounced,\r\nsometimes in private talk and sometimes publicly, but the only\r\nresult was that I made myself detested of them all. They gladly\r\nlaid hold of the daily eagerness of my students to hear me as an\r\nexcuse whereby they might be rid of me; and finally, at the\r\ninsistent urging of the students themselves, and with the hearty\r\nconsent of the abbot and the rest of the brotherhood, I departed\r\nthence to a certain hut, there to teach in my wonted way. To this\r\nplace such a throng of students flocked that the neighbourhood\r\ncould not afford shelter for them, nor the earth sufficient\r\nsustenance.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00092\"\u003eHere, as befitted my profession, I devoted myself chiefly to\r\nlectures on theology, but I did not wholly abandon the teaching of\r\nthe secular arts, to which I was more accustomed, and which was\r\nparticularly demanded of me. I used the latter, however, as a hook,\r\nluring my students by the bait of learning to the study of the true\r\nphilosophy, even as the Ecclesiastical History tells of Origen, the\r\ngreatest of all Christian philosophers. Since apparently the Lord\r\nhad gifted me with no less persuasiveness in expounding the\r\nScriptures than in lecturing on secular subjects, the number of my\r\nstudents in these two courses began to increase greatly, and the\r\nattendance at all the other schools was correspondingly diminished.\r\nThus I aroused the envy and hatred of the other teachers. Those who\r\nsought to belittle me in every possible way took advantage of my\r\nabsence to bring two principal charges against me: first, that it\r\nwas contrary to the monastic profession to be concerned with the\r\nstudy of secular books; and, second, that I had presumed to teach\r\ntheology without ever having been taught therein myself. This they\r\ndid in order that my teaching of every kind might be prohibited,\r\nand to this end they continually stirred up bishops, archbishops,\r\nabbots and whatever other dignitaries of the Church they could\r\nreach.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eCHAPTER IX\u003c/h3\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ch5 id=\"id00094\"\u003eOF HIS BOOK ON THEOLOGY AND HIS PERSECUTION AT THE HANDS OF HIS\r\nFELLOW STUDENTS—OF THE COUNCIL AGAINST HIM\u003c/h5\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00095\"\u003eIt so happened that at the outset I devoted myself to analyzing the\r\nbasis of our faith through illustrations based on human\r\nunderstanding, and I wrote for my students a certain tract on the\r\nunity and trinity of God. This I did because they were always\r\nseeking for rational and philosophical explanations, asking rather\r\nfor reasons they could understand than for mere words, saying that\r\nit was futile to utter words which the intellect could not possibly\r\nfollow, that nothing could be believed unless it could first be\r\nunderstood, and that it was absurd for any one to preach to others\r\na thing which neither he himself nor those whom he sought to teach\r\ncould comprehend. Our Lord Himself maintained this same thing when\r\nHe said: \"They are blind leaders of the blind\" (Matthew, xv, 14).\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00096\"\u003eNow, a great many people saw and read this tract, and it became\r\nexceedingly popular, its clearness appealing particularly to all\r\nwho sought information on this subject. And since the questions\r\ninvolved are generally considered the most difficult of all, their\r\ncomplexity is taken as the measure of the subtlety of him who\r\nsucceeds in answering them. As a result, my rivals became furiously\r\nangry, and summoned a council to take action against me, the chief\r\ninstigators therein being my two intriguing enemies of former days,\r\nAlberic and Lotulphe. These two, now that both William and Anselm,\r\nour erstwhile teachers, were dead, were greedy to reign in their\r\nstead, and, so to speak, to succeed them as heirs. While they were\r\ndirecting the school at Rheims, they managed by repeated hints to\r\nstir up their archbishop, Rodolphe, against me, for the purpose of\r\nholding a meeting, or rather an ecclesiastical council, at\r\nSoissons, provided they could secure the approval of Conon, Bishop\r\nof Praeneste, at that time papal legate in France. Their plan was\r\nto summon me to be present at this council, bringing with me the\r\nfamous book I had written regarding the Trinity. In all this,\r\nindeed, they were successful, and the thing happened according to\r\ntheir wishes.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00097\"\u003eBefore I reached Soissons, however, these two rivals of mine so\r\nfoully slandered me with both the clergy and the public that on the\r\nday of my arrival the people came near to stoning me and the few\r\nstudents of mine who had accompanied me thither. The cause of their\r\nanger was that they had been led to believe that I had preached and\r\nwritten to prove the existence of three gods. No sooner had I\r\nreached the city, therefore, than I went forthwith to the legate;\r\nto him I submitted my book for examination and judgment, declaring\r\nthat if I had written anything repugnant to the Catholic faith, I\r\nwas quite ready to correct it or otherwise to make satisfactory\r\namends. The legate directed me to refer my book to the archbishop\r\nand to those same two rivals of mine, to the end that my accusers\r\nmight also be my judges. So in my case was fulfilled the saying:\r\n\"Even our enemies are our judges\" (Deut. Xxxii, 31).\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00098\"\u003eThese three, then, took my book and pawed it over and examined it\r\nminutely, but could find nothing therein which they dared to use as\r\nthe basis for a public accusation against me. Accordingly they put\r\noff the condemnation of the book until the close of the council,\r\ndespite their eagerness to bring it about. For my part, everyday\r\nbefore the council convened I publicly discussed the Catholic faith\r\nin the light of what I had written, and all who heard me were\r\nenthusiastic in their approval alike of the frankness and the logic\r\nof my words. When the public and the clergy had thus learned\r\nsomething of the real character of my teaching, they began to say\r\nto one another: \"Behold, now he speaks openly, and no one brings\r\nany charge against him. And this council, summoned, as we have\r\nheard, chiefly to take action upon his case, is drawing toward its\r\nend. Did the judges realize that the error might be theirs rather\r\nthan his?\"\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00099\"\u003eAs a result of all this, my rivals grew more angry day by day. On\r\none occasion Alberic, accompanied by some of his students, came to\r\nme for the purpose of intimidating me, and, after a few bland\r\nwords, said that he was amazed at something he had found in my\r\nbook, to the effect that, although God had begotten God, I denied\r\nthat God had begotten Himself, since there was only one God. I\r\nanswered unhesitatingly: \"I can give you an explanation of this if\r\nyou wish it.\" \"Nay,\" he replied, \"I care nothing for human\r\nexplanation or reasoning in such matters, but only for the words\r\nof authority.\" \"Very well.\" I said; \"turn the pages of my book and\r\nyou will find the authority likewise.\" The book was at hand, for he\r\nhad brought it with him. I turned to the passage I had in mind,\r\nwhich he had either not discovered or else passed over as\r\ncontaining nothing injurious to me. And it was God\u0027s will that I\r\nquickly found what I sought. This was the following sentence, under\r\nthe heading \"Augustine, On the Trinity, Book I\": \"Whosoever\r\nbelieves that it is within the power of God to beget Himself is\r\nsorely in error; this power is not in God, neither is it in any\r\ncreated thing, spiritual or corporeal. For there is nothing that\r\ncan give birth to itself.\"\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00100\"\u003eWhen those of his followers who were present heard this, they were\r\namazed and much embarrassed. He himself, in order to keep his\r\ncountenance, said: \"Certainly, I understand all that.\" Then I\r\nadded: \"What I have to say further on this subject is by no means\r\nnew, but apparently it has nothing to do with the case at issue,\r\nsince you have asked for the word of authority only, and not for\r\nexplanations. If, however, you care to consider logical\r\nexplanations, I am prepared to demonstrate that, according to\r\nAugustine\u0027s statement, you have yourself fallen into a heresy in\r\nbelieving that a father can possibly be his own son.\" When Alberic\r\nheard this he was almost beside himself with rage, and straightway\r\nresorted to threats, asserting that neither my explanations nor my\r\ncitations of authority would avail me aught in this case. With this\r\nhe left me.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00101\"\u003eOn the last day of the council, before the session convened, the\r\nlegate and the archbishop deliberated with my rivals and sundry\r\nothers as to what should be done about me and my book, this being\r\nthe chief reason for their having come together. And since they had\r\ndiscovered nothing either in my speech or in what I had hitherto\r\nwritten which would give them a case against me, they were all\r\nreduced to silence, or at the most to maligning me in whispers.\r\nThen Geoffroi, Bishop of Chartres, who excelled the other bishops\r\nalike in the sincerity of his religion and in the importance of his\r\nsee, spoke thus:\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00102\"\u003e\"You know, my lords, all who are gathered here, the doctrine of\r\nthis man, what it is, and his ability, which has brought him many\r\nfollowers in every field to which he has devoted himself. You know\r\nhow greatly he has lessened the renown of other teachers, both his\r\nmasters and our own, and how he has spread as it were the offshoots\r\nof his vine from sea to sea. Now, if you impose a lightly\r\nconsidered judgment on him, as I cannot believe you will, you well\r\nknow that even if mayhap you are in the right there are many who\r\nwill be angered thereby, and that he will have no lack of\r\ndefenders. Remember above all that we have found nothing in this\r\nbook of his that lies before us whereon any open accusation can be\r\nbased. Indeed it is true, as Jerome says: \u0027Fortitude openly\r\ndisplayed always creates rivals, and the lightning strikes the\r\nhighest peaks.\u0027 Have a care, then, lest by violent action you only\r\nincrease his fame, and lest we do more hurt to ourselves through\r\nenvy than to him through justice. A false report, as that same wise\r\nman reminds us, is easily crushed, and a man\u0027s later life gives\r\ntestimony as to his earlier deeds. If, then, you are disposed to\r\ntake canonical action against him, his doctrine or his writings\r\nmust be brought forward as evidence, and he must have free\r\nopportunity to answer his questioners. In that case, if he is found\r\nguilty or if he confesses his error, his lips can be wholly sealed.\r\nConsider the words of the blessed Nicodemus, who, desiring to free\r\nOur Lord Himself, said: \u0027Doth our law judge any man before it hear\r\nhim and know what he doeth? \u0027\" (John, vii, 51).\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00103\"\u003eWhen my rivals heard this they cried out in protest, saying: \"This\r\nis wise counsel, forsooth, that we should strive against the\r\nwordiness of this man, whose arguments, or rather, sophistries, the\r\nwhole world cannot resist!\" And yet, methinks, it was far more\r\ndifficult to strive against Christ Himself, for Whom, nevertheless,\r\nNicodemus demanded a hearing in accordance with the dictates of the\r\nlaw. When the bishop could not win their assent to his proposals,\r\nhe tried in another way to curb their hatred, saying that for the\r\ndiscussion of such an important case the few who were present were\r\nnot enough, and that this matter required a more thorough\r\nexamination. His further suggestion was that my abbot, who was\r\nthere present, should take me back with him to our abbey, in other\r\nwords to the monastery of St. Denis, and that there a large\r\nconvocation of learned men should determine, on the basis of a\r\ncareful investigation, what ought to be done. To this last proposal\r\nthe legate consented, as did all the others.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00104\"\u003eThen the legate arose to celebrate mass before entering the\r\ncouncil, and through the bishop sent me the permission which had\r\nbeen determined on, authorizing me to return to my monastery and\r\nthere await such action as might be finally taken. But my rivals,\r\nperceiving that they would accomplish nothing if the trial were to\r\nbe held outside of their own diocese, and in a place where they\r\ncould have little influence on the verdict, and in truth having\r\nsmall wish that justice should be done, persuaded the archbishop\r\nthat it would be a grave insult to him to transfer this case to\r\nanother court, and that it would be dangerous for him if by chance\r\nI should thus be acquitted. They likewise went to the legate, and\r\nsucceeded in so changing his opinion that finally they induced him\r\nto frame a new sentence, whereby he agreed to condemn my book\r\nwithout any further inquiry, to burn it forthwith in the sight of\r\nall, and to confine me for a year in another monastery. The\r\nargument they used was that it sufficed for the condemnation of my\r\nbook that I had presumed to read it in public without the approval\r\neither of the Roman pontiff or of the Church, and that,\r\nfurthermore, I had given it to many to be transcribed. Methinks it\r\nwould be a notable blessing to the Christian faith if there were\r\nmore who displayed a like presumption. The legate, however, being\r\nless skilled in law than he should have been, relied chiefly on the\r\nadvice of the archbishop, and he, in turn, on that of my rivals.\r\nWhen the Bishop of Chartres got wind of this, he reported the whole\r\nconspiracy to me, and strongly urged me to endure meekly the\r\nmanifest violence of their enmity. He bade me not to doubt that\r\nthis violence would in the end react upon them and prove a blessing\r\nto me, and counseled me to have no fear of the confinement in a\r\nmonastery, knowing that within a few days the legate himself, who\r\nwas now acting under compulsion, would after his departure set me\r\nfree. And thus he consoled me as best he might, mingling his tears\r\nwith mine.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eCHAPTER X\u003c/h3\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ch5 id=\"id00106\"\u003eOF THE BURNING OF HIS BOOK—OF THE PERSECUTION HE HAD AT THE HANDS\r\nOF HIS ABBOT AND THE BRETHREN\u003c/h5\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00107\"\u003eStraightway upon my summons I went to the council, and there,\r\nwithout further examination or debate, did they compel me with my\r\nown hand to cast that memorable book of mine into the flames.\r\nAlthough my enemies appeared to have nothing to say while the book\r\nwas burning, one of them muttered something about having seen it\r\nwritten therein that God the Father was alone omnipotent. This\r\nreached the ears of the legate, who replied in astonishment that he\r\ncould not believe that even a child would make so absurd a blunder.\r\n\"Our common faith,\" he said, \"holds and sets forth that the Three\r\nare alike omnipotent.\" A certain Tirric, a schoolmaster, hearing\r\nthis, sarcastically added the Athanasian phrase, \"And yet there are\r\nnot three omnipotent Persons, but only One.\"\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00108\"\u003eThis man\u0027s bishop forthwith began to censure him, bidding him\r\ndesist from such treasonable talk, but he boldly stood his ground,\r\nand said, as if quoting the words of Daniel: \"\u0027Are ye such fools,\r\nye sons of Israel, that without examination or knowledge of the\r\ntruth ye have condemned a daughter of Israel? Return again to the\r\nplace of judgment,\u0027 (Daniel, xiii, 48—The History of Susanna) and\r\nthere give judgment on the judge himself. You have set up this\r\njudge, forsooth, for the instruction of faith and the correction of\r\nerror, and yet, when he ought to give judgment, he condemns himself\r\nout of his own mouth. Set free today, with the help of God\u0027s mercy,\r\none who is manifestly innocent, even as Susanna was freed of old\r\nfrom her false accusers.\"\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00109\"\u003eThereupon the archbishop arose and confirmed the legate\u0027s\r\nstatement, but changed the wording thereof, as indeed was most\r\nfitting. \"It is God\u0027s truth,\" he said, \"that the Father is\r\nomnipotent, the Son is omnipotent, the Holy Spirit is omnipotent.\r\nAnd whosoever dissents from this is openly in error, and must not\r\nbe listened to. Nevertheless, if it be your pleasure, it would be\r\nwell that this our brother should publicly state before us all the\r\nfaith that is in him, to the end that, according to its deserts, it\r\nmay either be approved or else condemned and corrected.\"\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00110\"\u003eWhen, however, I fain would have arisen to profess and set forth my\r\nfaith, in order that I might express in my own words that which was\r\nin my heart, my enemies declared that it was not needful for me to\r\ndo more than recite the Athanasian Symbol, a thing which any boy\r\nmight do as well as I. And lest I should allege ignorance,\r\npretending that I did not know the words by heart, they had a copy\r\nof it set before me to read. And read it I did as best I could for\r\nmy groans and sighs and tears. Thereupon, as if I had been a\r\nconvicted criminal, I was handed over to the Abbot of St. Médard,\r\nwho was there present, and led to his monastery as to a prison. And\r\nwith this the council was immediately dissolved.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00111\"\u003eThe abbot and the monks of the aforesaid monastery, thinking that I\r\nwould remain long with them, received me with great exultation, and\r\ndiligently sought to console me, but all in vain. O God, who dost\r\njudge justice itself, in what venom of the spirit, in what\r\nbitterness of mind, did I blame even Thee for my shame, accusing\r\nThee in my madness! Full often did I repeat the lament of St.\r\nAnthony: \"Kindly Jesus, where wert Thou?\" The sorrow that tortured\r\nme, the shame that overwhelmed me, the desperation that wracked my\r\nmind, all these I could then feel, but even now I can find no words\r\nto express them. Comparing these new sufferings of my soul with\r\nthose I had formerly endured in my body, it seemed that I was in\r\nvery truth the most miserable among men. Indeed that earlier\r\nbetrayal had become a little thing in comparison with this later\r\nevil, and I lamented the hurt to my fair name far more than the one\r\nto my body. The latter, indeed, I had brought upon myself through\r\nmy own wrongdoing, but this other violence had come upon me solely\r\nby reason of the honesty of my purpose and my love of our faith,\r\nwhich had compelled me to write that which I believed.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00112\"\u003eThe very cruelty and heartlessness of my punishment, however, made\r\nevery one who heard the story vehement in censuring it, so that\r\nthose who had a hand therein were soon eager to disclaim all\r\nresponsibility, shouldering the blame on others. Nay, matters came\r\nto such a pass that even my rivals denied that they had had\r\nanything to do with the matter, and as for the legate, he publicly\r\ndenounced the malice with which the French had acted. Swayed by\r\nrepentance for his injustice, and feeling that he had yielded\r\nenough to satisfy their rancour, he shortly freed me from the\r\nmonastery whither I had been taken, and sent me back to my own.\r\nHere, however, I found almost as many enemies as I had in the\r\nformer days of which I have already spoken, for the vileness and\r\nshamelessness of their way of living made them realize that they\r\nwould again have to endure my censure.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00113\"\u003eAfter a few months had passed, chance gave them an opportunity by\r\nwhich they sought to destroy me. It happened that one day, in the\r\ncourse of my reading, I came upon a certain passage of Bede, in his\r\ncommentary on the Acts of the Apostles, wherein he asserts that\r\nDionysius the Areopagite was the bishop, not of Athens, but of\r\nCorinth. Now, this was directly counter to the belief of the monks,\r\nwho were wont to boast that their Dionysius, or Denis, was not only\r\nthe Areopagite but was likewise proved by his acts to have been the\r\nBishop of Athens. Having thus found this testimony of Bede\u0027s in\r\ncontradiction of our own tradition, I showed it somewhat jestingly\r\nto sundry of the monks who chanced to be near. Wrathfully they\r\ndeclared that Bede was no better than a liar, and that they had a\r\nfar more trustworthy authority in the person of Hilduin, a former\r\nabbot of theirs, who had travelled for a long time throughout\r\nGreece for the purpose of investigating this very question. He,\r\nthey insisted, had by his writings removed all possible doubt on\r\nthe subject, and had securely established the truth of the\r\ntraditional belief.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00114\"\u003eOne of the monks went so far as to ask me brazenly which of the\r\ntwo, Bede or Hilduin, I considered the better authority on this\r\npoint. I replied that the authority of Bede, whose writings are\r\nheld in high esteem by the whole Latin Church, appeared to me the\r\nbetter. Thereupon in a great rage they began to cry out that at\r\nlast I had openly proved the hatred I had always felt for our\r\nmonastery, and that I was seeking to disgrace it in the eyes of the\r\nwhole kingdom, robbing it of the honour in which it had\r\nparticularly gloried, by thus denying that the Areopagite was their\r\npatron saint. To this I answered that I had never denied the fact,\r\nand that I did not much care whether their patron was the\r\nAreopagite or some one else, provided only he had received his\r\ncrown from God. Thereupon they ran to the abbot and told him of the\r\nmisdemeanour with which they charged me.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00115\"\u003eThe abbot listened to their story with delight, rejoicing at having\r\nfound a chance to crush me, for the greater vileness of his life\r\nmade him fear me more even than the rest did. Accordingly he\r\nsummoned his council, and when the brethren had assembled he\r\nviolently threatened me, declaring that he would straightway send\r\nme to the king, by him to be punished for having thus sullied his\r\ncrown and the glory of his royalty. And until he should hand me\r\nover to the king, he ordered that I should be closely guarded. In\r\nvain did I offer to submit to the customary discipline if I had in\r\nany way been guilty. Then, horrified at their wickedness, which\r\nseemed to crown the ill fortune I had so long endured, and in utter\r\ndespair at the apparent conspiracy of the whole world against me, I\r\nfled secretly from the monastery by night, helped thereto by some\r\nof the monks who took pity on me, and likewise aided by some of my\r\nscholars.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00116\"\u003eI made my way to a region where I had formerly dwelt, hard by the\r\nlands of Count Theobald (of Champagne). He himself had some slight\r\nacquaintance with me, and had compassion on me by reason of my\r\npersecutions, of which the story had reached him. I found a home\r\nthere within the walls of Provins, in a priory of the monks of\r\nTroyes, the prior of which had in former days known me well and\r\nshown me much love. In his joy at my coming he cared for me with\r\nall diligence. It chanced, however, that one day my abbot came to\r\nProvins to see the count on certain matters of business. As soon as\r\nI had learned of this, I went to the count, the prior accompanying\r\nme, and besought him to intercede in my behalf with the abbot. I\r\nasked no more than that the abbot should absolve me of the charge\r\nagainst me, and give me permission to live the monastic life\r\nwheresoever I could find a suitable place. The abbot, however, and\r\nthose who were with him took the matter under advisement, saying\r\nthat they would give the count an answer the day before they\r\ndeparted. It appeared from their words that they thought I wished\r\nto go to some other abbey, a thing which they regarded as an\r\nimmense disgrace to their own. They had, indeed, taken particular\r\npride in the fact that, upon my conversion, I had come to them, as\r\nif scorning all other abbeys, and accordingly they considered that\r\nit would bring great shame upon them if I should now desert their\r\nabbey and seek another. For this reason they refused to listen\r\neither to my own plea or to that of the count. Furthermore, they\r\nthreatened me with excommunication unless I should instantly\r\nreturn; likewise they forbade the prior with whom I had taken\r\nrefuge to keep me longer, under pain of sharing my excommunication.\r\nWhen we heard this both the prior and I were stricken with fear.\r\nThe abbot went away still obdurate, but a few days thereafter he\r\ndied.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00117\"\u003eAs soon as his successor had been named, I went to him, accompanied\r\nby the Bishop of Meaux, to try if I might win from him the\r\npermission I had vainly sought of his predecessor. At first he\r\nwould not give his assent, but finally, through the intervention of\r\ncertain friends of mine, I secured the right to appeal to the king\r\nand his council, and in this way I at last obtained what I sought.\r\nThe royal seneschal, Stephen, having summoned the abbot and his\r\nsubordinates that they might state their case, asked them why they\r\nwanted to keep me against my will. He pointed out that this might\r\neasily bring them into evil repute, and certainly could do them no\r\ngood, seeing that their way of living was utterly incompatible with\r\nmine. I knew it to be the opinion of the royal council that the\r\nirregularities in the conduct of this abbey would tend to bring it\r\nmore and more under the control of the king, making it increasingly\r\nuseful and likewise profitable to him, and for this reason I had\r\ngood hope of easily winning the support of the king and those about\r\nhim.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00118\"\u003eThus, indeed, did it come to pass. But in order that the monastery\r\nmight not be shorn of any of the glory which it had enjoyed by\r\nreason of my sojourn there, they granted me permission to betake\r\nmyself to any solitary place I might choose, provided only I did\r\nnot put myself under the rule of any other abbey. This was agreed\r\nupon and confirmed on both sides in the presence of the king and\r\nhis councellors. Forthwith I sought out a lonely spot known to me\r\nof old in the region of Troyes, and there, on a bit of land which\r\nhad been given to me, and with the approval of the bishop of the\r\ndistrict, I built with reeds and stalks my first oratory in the\r\nname of the Holy Trinity. And there concealed, with but one\r\ncomrade, a certain cleric, I was able to sing over and over again\r\nto the Lord: \"Lo, then would I wander far off, and remain in the\r\nwilderness\" (Ps. IV, 7).\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eCHAPTER XI\u003c/h3\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ch5 id=\"id00120\"\u003eOF HIS TEACHING IN THE WILDERNESS\u003c/h5\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00121\"\u003eNo sooner had scholars learned of my retreat than they began to\r\nflock thither from all sides, leaving their towns and castles to\r\ndwell in the wilderness. In place of their spacious houses they\r\nbuilt themselves huts; instead of dainty fare they lived on the\r\nherbs of the field and coarse bread; their soft beds they exchanged\r\nfor heaps of straw and rushes, and their tables were piles of turf.\r\nIn very truth you may well believe that they were like those\r\nphilosophers of old of whom Jerome tells us in his second book\r\nagainst Jovinianus.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00122\"\u003e\"Through the senses,\" says Jerome, \"as through so many windows, do\r\nvices win entrance to the soul. The metropolis and citadel of the\r\nmind cannot be taken unless the army of the foe has first rushed in\r\nthrough the gates. If any one delights in the games of the circus,\r\nin the contests of athletes, in the versatility of actors, in the\r\nbeauty of women, in the glitter of gems and raiment, or in aught\r\nelse like to these, then the freedom of his soul is made captive\r\nthrough the windows of his eyes, and thus is fulfilled the\r\nprophecy: `For death is come up into our windows\u0027 (Jer. ix, 21).\r\nAnd then, when the wedges of doubt have, as it were, been driven\r\ninto the citadels of our minds through these gateways, where will\r\nbe its liberty? where its fortitude? where its thought of God? Most\r\nof all does the sense of touch paint for itself the pictures of\r\npast raptures, compelling the soul to dwell fondly upon remembered\r\niniquities, and so to practice in imagination those things which\r\nreality denies to it.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00123\"\u003e\"Heeding such counsel, therefore, many among the philosophers\r\nforsook the thronging ways of the cities and the pleasant gardens\r\nof the countryside, with their well-watered fields, their shady\r\ntrees, the song of birds, the mirror of the fountain, the murmur of\r\nthe stream, the many charms for eye and ear, fearing lest their\r\nsouls should grow soft amid luxury and abundance of riches, and\r\nlest their virtue should thereby be defiled. For it is perilous to\r\nturn your eyes often to those things whereby you may some day be\r\nmade captive, or to attempt the possession of that which it would\r\ngo hard with you to do without. Thus the Pythagoreans shunned all\r\ncompanionship of this kind, and were wont to dwell in solitary and\r\ndesert places. Nay, Plato himself, although he was a rich man, let\r\nDiogenes trample on his couch with muddy feet, and in order that he\r\nmight devote himself to philosophy established his academy in a\r\nplace remote from the city, and not only uninhabited but unhealthy\r\nas well. This he did in order that the onslaughts of lust might be\r\nbroken by the fear and constant presence of disease, and that his\r\nfollowers might find no pleasure save in the things they learned.\"\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00124\"\u003eSuch a life, likewise, the sons of the prophets who were the\r\nfollowers of Eliseus are reported to have led. Of these Jerome also\r\ntells us, writing thus to the monk Rusticus as if describing the\r\nmonks of those ancient days: \"The sons of the prophets, the monks\r\nof whom we read in the Old Testament, built for themselves huts by\r\nthe waters of the Jordan, and forsaking the throngs and the cities,\r\nlived on pottage and the herbs of the field\" (Epist. iv).\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00125\"\u003eEven so did my followers build their huts above the waters of the\r\nArduzon, so that they seemed hermits rather than scholars. And as\r\ntheir number grew ever greater, the hardships which they gladly\r\nendured for the sake of my teaching seemed to my rivals to reflect\r\nnew glory on me, and to cast new shame on themselves. Nor was it\r\nstrange that they, who had done their utmost to hurt me, should\r\ngrieve to see how all things worked together for my good, even\r\nthough I was now, in the words of Jerome, afar from cities and the\r\nmarket place, from controversies and the crowded ways of men. And\r\nso, as Quintilian says, did envy seek me out even in my hiding\r\nplace. Secretly my rivals complained and lamented one to another,\r\nsaying: \"Behold now, the whole world runs after him, and our\r\npersecution of him has done nought save to increase his glory. We\r\nstrove to extinguish his fame, and we have but given it new\r\nbrightness. Lo, in the cities scholars have at hand everything they\r\nmay need, and yet, spurning the pleasures of the town, they seek\r\nout the barrenness of the desert, and of their own free will they\r\naccept wretchedness.\"\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00126\"\u003eThe thing which at that time chiefly led me to undertake the\r\ndirection of a school was my intolerable poverty, for I had not\r\nstrength enough to dig, and shame kept me from begging. And so,\r\nresorting once more to the art with which I was so familiar, I was\r\ncompelled to substitute the service of the tongue for the labour of\r\nmy hands. The students willingly provided me with whatsoever I\r\nneeded in the way of food and clothing, and likewise took charge of\r\nthe cultivation of the fields and paid for the erection of\r\nbuildings, in order that material cares might not keep me from my\r\nstudies. Since my oratory was no longer large enough to hold even a\r\nsmall part of their number, they found it necessary to increase its\r\nsize, and in so doing they greatly improved it, building it of\r\nstone and wood. Although this oratory had been founded in honour of\r\nthe Holy Trinity, and afterwards dedicated thereto, I now named it\r\nthe Paraclete, mindful of how I had come there a fugitive and in\r\ndespair, and had breathed into my soul something of the miracle of\r\ndivine consolation.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00127\"\u003eMany of those who heard of this were greatly astonished, and some\r\nviolently assailed my action, declaring that it was not permissible\r\nto dedicate a church exclusively to the Holy Spirit rather than to\r\nGod the Father. They held, according to an ancient tradition, that\r\nit must be dedicated either to the Son alone or else to the entire\r\nTrinity. The error which led them into this false accusation\r\nresulted from their failure to perceive the identity of the\r\nParaclete with the Spirit Paraclete. Even as the whole Trinity, or\r\nany Person in the Trinity, may rightly be called God or Helper, so\r\nlikewise may It be termed the Paraclete, that is to say the\r\nConsoler. These are the words of the Apostle: \"Blessed be God, even\r\nthe Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the\r\nGod of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our tribulation\"\r\n(2 Cor. i, 3). And likewise the word of truth says: \"And he shall\r\ngive you another comforter\" (Greek \"another Paraclete,\" John, xiv, 16).\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00128\"\u003eNay, since every church is consecrated equally in the name of the\r\nFather, the Son and the Holy Spirit, without any difference in\r\ntheir possession thereof, why should not the house of God be\r\ndedicated to the Father or to the Holy Spirit, even as it is to the\r\nSon? Who would presume to erase from above the door the name of him\r\nwho is the master of the house? And since the Son offered Himself\r\nas a sacrifice to the Father, and accordingly in the ceremonies of\r\nthe mass the prayers are offered particularly to the Father, and\r\nthe immolation of the Host is made to Him, why should the altar not\r\nbe held to be chiefly His to whom above all the supplication and\r\nsacrifice are made? Is it not called more rightly the altar of Him\r\nwho receives than of Him who makes the sacrifice? Who would admit\r\nthat an altar is that of the Holy Cross, or of the Sepulchre, or of\r\nSt. Michael, or John, or Peter, or of any other saint, unless\r\neither he himself was sacrificed there or else special sacrifices\r\nand prayers are made there to him? Methinks the altars and temples\r\nof certain ones among these saints are not held to be idolatrous\r\neven though they are used for special sacrifices and prayers to\r\ntheir patrons.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00129\"\u003eSome, however, may perchance argue that churches are not built or\r\naltars dedicated to the Father because there is no feast which is\r\nsolemnized especially for Him. But while this reasoning holds good\r\nas regards the Trinity itself, it does not apply in the case of the\r\nHoly Spirit. For this Spirit, from the day of Its advent, has had\r\nIts special feast of the Pentecost, even as the Son has had since\r\nHis coming upon earth His feast of the Nativity. Even as the Son\r\nwas sent into this world, so did the Holy Spirit descend upon the\r\ndisciples, and thus does It claim Its special religious rites. Nay,\r\nit seems more fitting to dedicate a temple to It than to either of\r\nthe other Persons of the Trinity, if we but carefully study the\r\napostolic authority, and consider the workings of this Spirit\r\nItself. To none of the three Persons did the apostle dedicate a\r\nspecial temple save to the Holy Spirit alone. He does not speak of\r\na temple of the Father, or a temple of the Son, as he does of a\r\ntemple of the Holy Spirit, writing thus in his first epistle to the\r\nCorinthians: \"But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.\"\r\n(I Cor. vi, 17). And again: \"What? know ye not that your body is\r\nthe temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have of\r\nGod, and ye are not your own?\" (ib. 19).\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00130\"\u003eWho is there who does not know that the sacraments of God\u0027s\r\nblessings pertaining to the Church are particularly ascribed to the\r\noperation of divine grace, by which is meant the Holy Spirit?\r\nForsooth we are born again of water and of the Holy Spirit in\r\nbaptism, and thus from the very beginning is the body made, as it\r\nwere, a special temple of God. In the successive sacraments,\r\nmoreover, the seven-fold grace of the Spirit is added, whereby\r\nthis same temple of God is made beautiful and is consecrated. What\r\nwonder is it, then, if to that Person to Whom the apostle assigned\r\na spiritual temple we should dedicate a material one? Or to what\r\nPerson can a church be more rightly said to belong than to Him to\r\nWhom all the blessings which the church administers are\r\nparticularly ascribed? It was not, however, with the thought of\r\ndedicating my oratory to one Person that I first called it the\r\nParaclete, but for the reason I have already told, that in this\r\nspot I found consolation. \u0027None the less, even if I had done it for\r\nthe reason attributed to me, the departure from the usual custom\r\nwould have been in no way illogical.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eCHAPTER XII\u003c/h3\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ch5 id=\"id00132\"\u003eOF THE PERSECUTION DIRECTED AGAINST HIM BY SUNDRY NEW ENEMIES OR,\r\nAS IT WERE, APOSTLES\u003c/h5\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00133\"\u003eAnd so I dwelt in this place, my body indeed hidden away, but my\r\nfame spreading throughout the whole world, till its echo\r\nreverberated mightily-echo, that fancy of the poet\u0027s, which has so\r\ngreat a voice, and nought beside. My former rivals, seeing that\r\nthey themselves were now powerless to do me hurt, stirred up\r\nagainst me certain new apostles in whom the world put great faith.\r\nOne of these (Norbert of Prémontré) took pride in his position as\r\ncanon of a regular order; the other (Bernard of Clairvaux) made it\r\nhis boast that he had revived the true monastic life. These two ran\r\nhither and yon preaching and shamelessly slandering me in every way\r\nthey could, so that in time they succeeded in drawing down on my\r\nhead the scorn of many among those having authority, among both the\r\nclergy and the laity. They spread abroad such sinister reports of\r\nmy faith as well as of my life that they turned even my best\r\nfriends against me, and those who still retained something of their\r\nformer regard for me were fain to disguise it in every possible way\r\nby reason of their fear of these two men.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00134\"\u003eGod is my witness that whensoever I learned of the convening of a\r\nnew assemblage of the clergy, I believed that it was done for the\r\nexpress purpose of my condemnation. Stunned by this fear like one\r\nsmitten with a thunderbolt, I daily expected to be dragged before\r\ntheir councils or assemblies as a heretic or one guilty of impiety.\r\nThough I seem to compare a flea with a lion, or an ant with an\r\nelephant, in very truth my rivals persecuted me no less bitterly\r\nthan the heretics of old hounded St. Athanasius. Often, God knows,\r\nI sank so deep in despair that I was ready to leave the world of\r\nChristendom and go forth among the heathen, paying them a\r\nstipulated tribute in order that I might live quietly a Christian\r\nlife among the enemies of Christ. It seemed to me that such people\r\nmight indeed be kindly disposed toward me, particularly as they\r\nwould doubtless suspect me of being no good Christian, imputing my\r\nflight to some crime I had committed, and would therefore believe\r\nthat I might perhaps be won over to their form of worship.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eCHAPTER XIII\u003c/h3\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ch5 id=\"id00136\"\u003eOF THE ABBEY TO WHICH HE WAS CALLED AND OF THE PERSECUTION HE HAD\r\nFROM HIS SONS, THAT IS TO SAY THE MONKS, AND FROM THE LORD OF THE\r\nLAND\u003c/h5\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00137\"\u003eWhile I was thus afflicted with so great perturbation of the\r\nspirit, and when the only way of escape seemed to be for me to seek\r\nrefuge with Christ among the enemies of Christ, there came a chance\r\nwhereby I thought I could for a while avoid the plottings of my\r\nenemies. But thereby I fell among Christians and monks who were far\r\nmore savage than heathens and more evil of life. The thing came\r\nabout in this wise. There was in lesser Brittany, in the bishopric\r\nof Vannes, a certain abbey of St. Gildas at Ruits, then mourning\r\nthe death of its shepherd. To this abbey the elective choice of the\r\nbrethren called me, with the approval of the prince of that land,\r\nand I easily secured permission to accept the post from my own\r\nabbot and brethren. Thus did the hatred of the French drive me\r\nwestward, even as that of the Romans drove Jerome toward the East.\r\nNever, God knows, would I have agreed to this thing had it not been\r\nfor my longing for any possible means of escape from the sufferings\r\nwhich I had borne so constantly.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00138\"\u003eThe land was barbarous and its speech was unknown to me; as for the\r\nmonks, their vile and untameable way of life was notorious almost\r\neverywhere. The people of the region, too, were uncivilized and\r\nlawless. Thus, like one who in terror of the sword that threatens\r\nhim dashes headlong over a precipice, and to shun one death for a\r\nmoment rushes to another, I knowingly sought this new danger in\r\norder to escape from the former one. And there, amid the dreadful\r\nroar of the waves of the sea, where the land\u0027s end left me no\r\nfurther refuge in flight, often in my prayers did I repeat over and\r\nover again: \"From the end of the earth will I cry unto Thee, when\r\nmy heart is overwhelmed\" (Ps. lxi, 2).\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00139\"\u003eNo one, methinks, could fail to understand how persistently that\r\nundisciplined body of monks, the direction of which I had thus\r\nundertaken, tortured my heart day and night, or how constantly I\r\nwas compelled to think of the danger alike to my body and to my\r\nsoul. I held it for certain that if I should try to force them to\r\nlive according to the principles they had themselves professed, I\r\nshould not survive. And yet, if I did not do this to the utmost of\r\nmy ability, I saw that my damnation was assured. Moreover, a\r\ncertain lord who was exceedingly powerful in that region had some\r\ntime previously brought the abbey under his control, taking\r\nadvantage of the state of disorder within the monastery to seize\r\nall the lands adjacent thereto for his own use, and he ground down\r\nthe monks with taxes heavier than those which were extorted from\r\nthe Jews themselves.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00140\"\u003eThe monks pressed me to supply them with their daily necessities,\r\nbut they held no property in common which I might administer in\r\ntheir behalf, and each one, with such resources as he possessed,\r\nsupported himself and his concubines, as well as his sons and\r\ndaughters. They took delight in harassing me on this matter, and\r\nthey stole and carried off whatsoever they could lay their hands\r\non, to the end that my failure to maintain order might make me\r\neither give up trying to enforce discipline or else abandon my post\r\naltogether. Since the entire region was equally savage, lawless and\r\ndisorganized, there was not a single man to whom I could turn for\r\naid, for the habits of all alike were foreign to me. Outside the\r\nmonastery the lord and his henchmen ceaselessly hounded me, and\r\nwithin its walls the brethren were forever plotting against me, so\r\nthat it seemed as if the Apostle had had me and none other in mind\r\nwhen he said: \"Without were fightings, within were fears\" (II Cor. vii, 5).\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00141\"\u003eI considered and lamented the uselessness and the wretchedness of\r\nmy existence, how fruitless my life now was, both to myself and to\r\nothers; how of old I had been of some service to the clerics whom I\r\nhad now abandoned for the sake of these monks, so that I was no\r\nlonger able to be of use to either; how incapable I had proved\r\nmyself in everything I had undertaken or attempted, so that above\r\nall others I deserved the reproach, \"This man began to build, and\r\nwas not able to finish\" (Luke xiv, 30). My despair grew still\r\ndeeper when I compared the evils I had left behind with those to\r\nwhich I had come, for my former sufferings now seemed to me as\r\nnought. Full often did I groan: \"Justly has this sorrow come upon\r\nme because I deserted the Paraclete, which is to say the Consoler,\r\nand thrust myself into sure desolation; seeking to shun threats I\r\nfled to certain peril.\"\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00142\"\u003eThe thing which tormented me most was the fact that, having\r\nabandoned my oratory, I could make no suitable provision for the\r\ncelebration there of the divine office, for indeed the extreme\r\npoverty of the place would scarcely provide the necessities of one\r\nman. But the true Paraclete Himself brought me real consolation in\r\nthe midst of this sorrow of mine, and made all due provision for\r\nHis own oratory. For it chanced that in some manner or other,\r\nlaying claim to it as having legally belonged in earlier days to\r\nhis monastery, my abbot of St. Denis got possession of the abbey of\r\nArgenteuil, of which I have previously spoken, wherein she who was\r\nnow my sister in Christ rather than my wife, Héloïse, had taken the\r\nveil. From this abbey he expelled by force all the nuns who had\r\ndwelt there, and of whom my former companion had become the\r\nprioress. The exiles being thus dispersed in various places, I\r\nperceived that this was an opportunity presented by God himself to\r\nme whereby I could make provision anew for my oratory. And so,\r\nreturning thither, I bade her come to the oratory, together with\r\nsome others from the same convent who had clung to her.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00143\"\u003eOn their arrival there I made over to them the oratory, together\r\nwith everything pertaining thereto, and subsequently, through the\r\napproval and assistance of the bishop of the district, Pope\r\nInnocent II promulgated a decree confirming my gift in perpetuity\r\nto them and their successors. And this refuge of divine mercy,\r\nwhich they served so devotedly, soon brought them consolation, even\r\nthough at first their life there was one of want, and for a time of\r\nutter destitution. But the place proved itself a true Paraclete to\r\nthem, making all those who dwelt round about feel pity and\r\nkindliness for the sisterhood. So that, methinks, they prospered\r\nmore through gifts in a single year than I should have done if I\r\nhad stayed there a hundred. True it is that the weakness of\r\nwomankind makes their needs and sufferings appeal strongly to\r\npeople\u0027s feelings, as likewise it makes their virtue all the more\r\npleasing to God and man. And God granted such favour in the eyes of\r\nall to her who was now my sister, and who was in authority over the\r\nrest, that the bishops loved her as a daughter, the abbots as a\r\nsister, and the laity as a mother. All alike marvelled at her\r\nreligious zeal, her good judgment and the sweetness of her\r\nincomparable patience in all things. The less often she allowed\r\nherself to be seen, shutting herself up in her cell to devote\r\nherself to sacred meditations and prayers, the more eagerly did\r\nthose who dwelt without demand her presence and the spiritual\r\nguidance of her words.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eCHAPTER XIV\u003c/h3\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ch5 id=\"id00145\"\u003eOF THE EVIL REPORT OF HIS INIQUITY\u003c/h5\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00146\"\u003eBefore long all those who dwelt thereabouts began to censure me\r\nroundly, complaining that I paid far less attention to their needs\r\nthan I might and should have done, and that at least I could do\r\nsomething for them through my preaching. As a result, I returned\r\nthither frequently, to be of service to them in whatsoever way I\r\ncould. Regarding this there was no lack of hateful murmuring, and\r\nthe thing which sincere charity induced me to do was seized upon by\r\nthe wickedness of my detractors as the subject of shameless outcry.\r\nThey declared that I, who of old could scarcely endure to be parted\r\nfrom her I loved, was still swayed by the delights of fleshly lust.\r\nMany times I thought of the complaint of St. Jerome in his letter\r\nto Asella regarding those women whom he was falsely accused of\r\nloving, when he said (Epist. xcix): \"I am charged with nothing save\r\nthe fact of my sex, and this charge is made only because Paula is\r\nsetting forth to Jerusalem.\" And again: \"Before I became intimate\r\nin the household of the saintly Paula, the whole city was loud in\r\nmy praise, and nearly every one deemed me deserving of the highest\r\nhonours of priesthood. But I know that my way to the kingdom of\r\nHeaven lies through good and evil report alike.\"\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00147\"\u003eWhen I pondered over the injury which slander had done to so great\r\na man as this, I was not a little consoled thereby. If my rivals, I\r\ntold myself, could but find an equal cause for suspicion against\r\nme, with what accusations would they persecute me! But how is it\r\npossible for such suspicion to continue in my case, seeing that\r\ndivine mercy has freed me therefrom by depriving me of all power to\r\nenact such baseness? How shameless is this latest accusation! In\r\ntruth that which had happened to me so completely removes all\r\nsuspicion of this iniquity among all men that those who wish to\r\nhave their women kept under close guard employ eunuchs for that\r\npurpose, even as sacred history tells regarding Esther and the\r\nother damsels of King Ahasuerus (Esther ii, 5). We read, too, of\r\nthat eunuch of great authority under Queen Candace who had charge\r\nof all her treasure, him to whose conversion and baptism the\r\napostle Philip was directed by an angel (Acts viii, 27). Such men,\r\nin truth, are enabled to have far more importance and intimacy\r\namong modest and upright women by the fact that they are free from\r\nany suspicion of lust.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00148\"\u003eThe sixth book of the Ecclesiastical History tells us that the\r\ngreatest of all Christian philosophers, Origen, inflicted a like\r\ninjury on himself with his own hand, in order that all suspicion of\r\nthis nature might be completely done away with in his instruction\r\nof women in sacred doctrine. In this respect, I thought, God\u0027s\r\nmercy had been kinder to me than to him, for it was judged that he\r\nhad acted most rashly and had exposed himself to no slight censure,\r\nwhereas the thing had been done to me through the crime of another,\r\nthus preparing me for a task similar to his own. Moreover, it had\r\nbeen accomplished with much less pain, being so quick and sudden,\r\nfor I was heavy with sleep when they laid hands on me, and felt\r\nscarcely any pain at all.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00149\"\u003eBut alas, I thought, the less I then suffered from the wound, the\r\ngreater is my punishment now through slander, and I am tormented\r\nfar more by the loss of my reputation than I was by that of part of\r\nmy body. For thus is it written: \"A good name is rather to be\r\nchosen than great riches\" (Prov. xxii, 1). And as St. Augustine\r\ntells us in a sermon of his on the life and conduct of the clergy,\r\n\"He is cruel who, trusting in his conscience, neglects his\r\nreputation.\" Again he says: \"Let us provide those things that are\r\ngood, as the apostle bids us (Rom. xii, 17), not alone in the eyes\r\nof God, but likewise in the eyes of men. Within himself each one\u0027s\r\nconscience suffices, but for our own sakes our reputations ought\r\nnot to be tarnished, but to flourish. Conscience and reputation are\r\ndifferent matters: conscience is for yourself, reputation for your\r\nneighbour.\" Methinks the spite of such men as these my enemies\r\nwould have accused the very Christ Himself, or those belonging to\r\nHim, prophets and apostles, or the other holy fathers, if such\r\nspite had existed in their time, seeing that they associated in\r\nsuch familiar intercourse with women, and this though they were\r\nwhole of body. On this point St. Augustine, in his book on the duty\r\nof monks, proves that women followed our Lord Jesus Christ and the\r\napostles as inseparable companions, even accompanying them when\r\nthey preached (Chap. 4). \"Faithful women,\" he says, \"who were\r\npossessed of worldly wealth went with them, and ministered to them\r\nout of their wealth, so that they might lack none of those things\r\nwhich belong to the substance of life.\" And if any one does not\r\nbelieve that the apostles thus permitted saintly women to go about\r\nwith them wheresoever they preached the Gospel, let him listen to\r\nthe Gospel itself, and learn therefrom that in so doing they\r\nfollowed the example of the Lord. For in the Gospel it is written\r\nthus: \"And it came to pass afterward, that He went throughout every\r\ncity and village, preaching and showing the glad tidings of the\r\nkingdom of God: and the twelve were with Him, and certain women,\r\nwhich had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called\r\nMagdalene, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod\u0027s steward, and\r\nSusanna, and many others, which ministered unto Him of their\r\nsubstance\" (Luke viii, i-3).\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00150\"\u003eLeo the Ninth, furthermore, in his reply to the letter of\r\nParmenianus concerning monastic zeal, says: \"We unequivocally\r\ndeclare that it is not permissible for a bishop, priest, deacon or\r\nsubdeacon to cast off all responsibility for his own wife on the\r\ngrounds of religious duty, so that he no longer provides her with\r\nfood and clothing; albeit he may not have carnal intercourse with\r\nher. We read that thus did the holy apostles act, for St. Paul\r\nsays: \u0027Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as\r\nother apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?\u0027 (I\r\nCor. ix, 5). Observe, foolish man, that he does not say: \u0027have we\r\nnot power to embrace a sister, a wife,\u0027 but he says \u0027to lead\r\nabout,\u0027 meaning thereby that such women may lawfully be supported\r\nby them out of the wages of their preaching, but that there must be\r\nno carnal bond between them.\"\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00151\"\u003eCertainly that Pharisee who spoke within himself of the Lord,\r\nsaying: \"This man, if He were a prophet, would have known who and\r\nwhat manner of woman this is that toucheth Him: for she is a\r\nsinner\" (Luke vii, 39), might much more reasonably have suspected\r\nbaseness of the Lord, considering the matter from a purely human\r\nstandpoint, than my enemies could suspect it of me. One who had\r\nseen the mother of Our Lord entrusted to the care of the young man\r\n(John xix, 27), or who had beheld the prophets dwelling and\r\nsojourning with widows (I Kings xvii, 10), would likewise have had\r\na far more logical ground for suspicion. And what would my\r\ncalumniators have said if they had but seen Malchus, that captive\r\nmonk of whom St. Jerome writes, living in the same but with his\r\nwife? Doubtless they would have regarded it as criminal in the\r\nfamous scholar to have highly commended what he thus saw, saying\r\nthereof: \"There was a certain old man named Malchus, a native of\r\nthis region, and his wife with him in his hut. Both of them were\r\nearnestly religious, and they so often passed the threshold of the\r\nchurch that you might have thought them the Zacharias and Elisabeth\r\nof the Gospel, saving only that John was not with them.\"\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00152\"\u003eWhy, finally, do such men refrain from slandering the holy fathers,\r\nof whom we frequently read, nay, and have even seen with our own\r\neyes, founding convents for women and making provision for their\r\nmaintenance, thereby following the example of the seven deacons\r\nwhom the apostles sent before them to secure food and take care of\r\nthe women? (Acts vi, 5). For the weaker sex needs the help of the\r\nstronger one to such an extent that the apostle proclaimed that the\r\nhead of the woman is ever the man (I Cor. xi, 3), and in sign\r\nthereof he bade her ever wear her head covered (ib. 5). For this\r\nreason I marvel greatly at the customs which have crept into\r\nmonasteries, whereby, even as abbots are placed in charge of the\r\nmen, abbesses now are given authority over the women, and the women\r\nbind themselves in their vows to accept the same rules as the men.\r\nYet in these rules there are many things which cannot possibly be\r\ncarried out by women, either as superiors or in the lower orders.\r\nIn many places we may even behold an inversion of the natural order\r\nof things, whereby the abbesses and nuns have authority over the\r\nclergy, and even over those who are themselves in charge of the\r\npeople. The more power such women exercise over men, the more\r\neasily can they lead them into iniquitous desires, and in this way\r\ncan lay a very heavy yoke upon their shoulders. It was with such\r\nthings in mind that the satirist said:\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00153\"\u003e \"There is nothing more intolerable than a rich woman.\"\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\r\n (Juvenal, Sat. VI, v, 459).\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eCHAPTER XV\u003c/h3\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ch5 id=\"id00155\"\u003eOF THE PERILS OF HIS ABBEY AND OF THE REASONS FOR THE WRITING OF\r\nTHIS HIS LETTER\u003c/h5\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00156\"\u003eReflecting often upon all these things, I determined to make\r\nprovision for those sisters and to undertake their care in every\r\nway I could. Furthermore, in order that they might have the greater\r\nreverence for me, I arranged to watch over them in person. And\r\nsince now the persecution carried on by my sons was greater and\r\nmore incessant than that which I formerly suffered at the hands of\r\nmy brethren, I returned frequently to the nuns, fleeing the rage of\r\nthe tempest as to a haven of peace. There, indeed, could I draw\r\nbreath for a little in quiet, and among them my labours were\r\nfruitful, as they never were among the monks. All this was of the\r\nutmost benefit to me in body and soul, and it was equally essential\r\nfor them by reason of their weakness.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00157\"\u003eBut now has Satan beset me to such an extent that I no longer know\r\nwhere I may find rest, or even so much as live. I am driven hither\r\nand yon, a fugitive and a vagabond, even as the accursed Cain (Gen.\r\niv, 14). I have already said that \"without were fightings, within\r\nwere fears\" (II Cor. vii, 5), and these torture me ceaselessly, the\r\nfears being indeed without as well as within, and the fightings\r\nwheresoever there are fears. Nay, the persecution carried on by my\r\nsons rages against me more perilously and continuously than that of\r\nmy open enemies, for my sons I have always with me, and I am ever\r\nexposed to their treacheries. The violence of my enemies I see in\r\nthe danger to my body if I leave the cloister; but within it I am\r\ncompelled incessantly to endure the crafty machinations as well as\r\nthe open violence of those monks who are called my sons, and who\r\nare entrusted to me as their abbot, which is to say their father.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00158\"\u003eOh, how often have they tried to kill me with poison, even as the\r\nmonks sought to slay St. Benedict! Methinks the same reason which\r\nled the saint to abandon his wicked sons might encourage me to\r\nfollow the example of so great a father, lest, in thus exposing\r\nmyself to certain peril, I might be deemed a rash tempter of God\r\nrather than a lover of Him, nay, lest it might even be judged that\r\nI had thereby taken my own life. When I had safeguarded myself to\r\nthe best of my ability, so far as my food and drink were concerned,\r\nagainst their daily plottings, they sought to destroy me in the\r\nvery ceremony of the altar by putting poison in the chalice. One\r\nday, when I had gone to Nantes to visit the count, who was then\r\nsick, and while I was sojourning awhile in the house of one of my\r\nbrothers in the flesh, they arranged to poison me, with the\r\nconnivance of one of my attendants, believing that I would take no\r\nprecautions to escape such a plot. But divine providence so ordered\r\nmatters that I had no desire for the food which was set before me;\r\none of the monks whom I had brought with me ate thereof, not\r\nknowing that which had been done, and straightway fell dead. As for\r\nthe attendant who had dared to undertake this crime, he fled in\r\nterror alike of his own conscience and of the clear evidence of his\r\nguilt.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00159\"\u003eAfter this, as their wickedness was manifest to every one, I began\r\nopenly in every way I could to avoid the danger with which their\r\nplots threatened me, even to the extent of leaving the abbey and\r\ndwelling with a few others apart in little cells. If the monks knew\r\nbeforehand that I was going anywhere on a journey, they bribed\r\nbandits to waylay me on the road and kill me. And while I was\r\nstruggling in the midst of these dangers, it chanced one day that\r\nthe hand of the Lord smote me a heavy blow, for I fell from my\r\nhorse, breaking a bone in my neck, the injury causing me greater\r\npain and weakness than my former wound.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00160\"\u003eUsing excommunication as my weapon to coerce the untamed\r\nrebelliousness of the monks, I forced certain ones among them whom\r\nI particularly feared to promise me publicly, pledging their faith\r\nor swearing upon the sacrament, that they would thereafter depart\r\nfrom the abbey and no longer trouble me in any way. Shamelessly and\r\nopenly did they violate the pledges they had given and their\r\nsacramental oaths, but finally they were compelled to give this and\r\nmany other promises under oath, in the presence of the count and\r\nthe bishops, by the authority of the Pontiff of Rome, Innocent, who\r\nsent his own legate for this special purpose. And yet even this did\r\nnot bring me peace. For when I returned to the abbey after the\r\nexpulsion of those whom I have just mentioned, and entrusted myself\r\nto the remaining brethren, of whom I felt less suspicion, I found\r\nthem even worse than the others. I barely succeeded in escaping\r\nthem, with the aid of a certain nobleman of the district, for they\r\nwere planning, not to poison me indeed, but to cut my throat with a\r\nsword. Even to the present time I stand face to face with this\r\ndanger, fearing the sword which threatens my neck so that I can\r\nscarcely draw a free breath between one meal and the next. Even so\r\ndo we read of him who, reckoning the power and heaped-up wealth of\r\nthe tyrant Dionysius as a great blessing, beheld the sword secretly\r\nhanging by a hair above his head, and so learned what kind of\r\nhappiness comes as the result of worldly power (Cicer. 5, Tusc.)\r\nThus did I too learn by constant experience, I who had been exalted\r\nfrom the condition of a poor monk to the dignity of an abbot, that\r\nmy wretchedness increased with my wealth; and I would that the\r\nambition of those who voluntarily seek such power might be curbed\r\nby my example.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00161\"\u003eAnd now, most dear brother in Christ and comrade closest to me in\r\nthe intimacy of speech, it should suffice for your sorrows and the\r\nhardships you have endured that I have written this story of my own\r\nmisfortunes, amid which I have toiled almost from the cradle. For\r\nso, as I said in the beginning of this letter, shall you come to\r\nregard your tribulation as nought, or at any rate as little, in\r\ncomparison with mine, and so shall you bear it more lightly in\r\nmeasure as you regard it as less. Take comfort ever in the saying\r\nof Our Lord, what he foretold for his followers at the hands of the\r\nfollowers of the devil: \"If they have persecuted me, they will also\r\npersecute you (John xv, 20). If the world hate you, ye know that it\r\nhated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world\r\nwould love his own\" (ib. 18-19). And the apostle says: \"All that\r\nwill live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution\" (II Tim.\r\niii, 12). And elsewhere he says: \"I do not seek to please men. For\r\nif I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ\"\r\n(Galat. i, 10). And the Psalmist says: \"They who have been pleasing\r\nto men have been confounded, for that God hath despised them.\"\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00162\"\u003eCommenting on this, St. Jerome, whose heir methinks I am in the\r\nendurance of foul slander, says in his letter to Nepotanius: \"The\r\napostle says: \u0027If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of\r\nChrist.\u0027 He no longer seeks to please men, and so is made Christ\u0027s\r\nservant\" (Epist. 2). And again, in his letter to Asella regarding\r\nthose whom he was falsely accused of loving: \"I give thanks to my\r\nGod that I am worthy to be one whom the world hates\" (Epist. 99).\r\nAnd to the monk Heliodorus he writes: \"You are wrong, brother, you\r\nare wrong if you think there is ever a time when the Christian does\r\nnot suffer persecution. For our adversary goes about as a roaring\r\nlion seeking what he may devour, and do you still think of peace?\r\nNay, he lieth in ambush among the rich.\"\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00163\"\u003eInspired by those records and examples, we should endure our\r\npersecutions all the more steadfastly the more bitterly they harm\r\nus. We should not doubt that even if they are not according to our\r\ndeserts, at least they serve for the purifying of our soul. And\r\nsince all things are done in accordance with the divine ordering,\r\nlet every one of true faith console himself amid all his\r\nafflictions with the thought that the great goodness of God permits\r\nnothing to be done without reason, and brings to a good end\r\nwhatsoever may seem to happen wrongfully. Wherefore rightly do all\r\nmen say: \"Thy will be done.\" And great is the consolation to all\r\nlovers of God in the word of the Apostle when he says: \"We know\r\nthat all things work together for good to them that love God\"\r\n(Rom. viii, 28). The wise man of old had this in mind when he said\r\nin his Proverbs: \"There shall no evil happen to the just\"\r\n(Prov. xii, 21). By this he clearly shows that whosoever grows\r\nwrathful for any reason against his sufferings has therein departed\r\nfrom the way of the just, because he may not doubt that these\r\nthings have happened to him by divine dispensation. Even such are\r\nthose who yield to their own rather than to the divine purpose, and\r\nwith hidden desires resist the spirit which echoes in the words,\r\n\"Thy will be done,\" thus placing their own will ahead of the will\r\nof God. Farewell.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eAPPENDIX\u003c/h2\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ch5 id=\"id00165\"\u003ePIERRE ABÉLARD\u003c/h5\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00166\"\u003ePetrus Abaelardus (or Abailardus) was born in the year 1079 at\r\nPalets, a Breton town not far from Nantes. His father, Berengarius,\r\nwas a nobleman of some local importance; his mother, Lucia, was\r\nlikewise of noble family. The name \"Abaelardus\" is said to be a\r\ncorruption of \"Habelardus,\" which, in turn, was substituted by\r\nhimself for the nickname \"Bajolardus\" given to him in his student\r\ndays. However the name may have arisen, the famous scholar\r\ncertainly adopted it very early in his career, and it went over\r\ninto the vernacular as \"Abélard\" or \"Abailard,\" though with a\r\nmultiplicity of variations (in Villon\u0027s famous poem, for example,\r\nit appears as \"Esbaillart\").\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00167\"\u003eFor the main facts of Abélard\u0027s life his own writings remain the\r\nbest authority, but through his frequent contact with many of the\r\nforemost figures in the intellectual and clerical life of the early\r\ntwelfth century it has been possible to check his own account of\r\nhis career with considerable accuracy. The story told in the\r\n\"Historia Calamitatum\" covers the events of his life from boyhood\r\nto about 1132 or 1133,—in other words, up to approximately his\r\nfifty-third or fifty-fourth year. That the account he gives of\r\nhimself is substantially correct cannot be doubted; making all due\r\nallowance for the violence of his feelings, which certainly led him\r\nto colour many incidents in a manner unfavourable to his enemies,\r\nthe main facts tally closely with all the external evidence now\r\navailable.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00168\"\u003eA very brief summary of the events of the final years of his life\r\nwill serve to round out the story. The \"Historia Calamitatum\" was\r\nwritten while Abélard was still abbot of the monastery of St.\r\nGildas, in Brittany. The terrors of his existence there are fully\r\ndwelt on in his autobiographical letter, and finally, in 1134 or\r\n1135, he fled, living for a short time in retirement. In 1136,\r\nhowever, we find him once more lecturing, and apparently with much\r\nof his former success, on Mont Ste. Genevieve. His old enemies were\r\nstill on his trail, and most of all Bernard of Clairvaux, to whose\r\nfiery adherence to the faith Abélard\u0027s rationalism seemed a sheer\r\ndesecration. The unceasing activities of Bernard and others finally\r\nbrought Abélard before an ecclesiastical council at Sens in 1140,\r\nwhere he was formally arraigned on charges of heresy. Had Abélard\u0027s\r\ncourage held good, he might have won his case, for Bernard was\r\nfrankly terrified at the prospect of meeting so formidable a\r\ndialectitian, but Abélard, broken in spirit by the prolonged\r\npersecution from which he had suffered, contented himself with\r\nappealing to the Pope. The indefatigable Bernard at once proceeded\r\nto secure a condemnation of Abélard from Rome, whither the accused\r\nman set out to plead his case. On the way, however, he collapsed,\r\nboth physically and in spirit, and remained for a few months at the\r\nabbey of Cluny, whence his friends removed him, a dying man, to the\r\npriory of St. Marcel, near Châlons-sur-Saône. Here he died on April\r\n21, 1142.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00169\"\u003eA discussion of Abélard\u0027s position among the scholastic\r\nphilosophers would necessarily go far beyond the proper limits of a\r\nmere historical note. He stands out less commandingly as a\r\nconstructive philosopher than as a master of dialectics. He was, as\r\neven his enemies admitted, a brilliant teacher and an unconquerable\r\nlogician; he was, moreover, a voluminous writer. Works by him which\r\nhave been preserved include letters, sermons, philosophical and\r\nreligious treatises, commentaries on the Bible, on Aristotle and on\r\nvarious other books, and a number of poems.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00170\"\u003eMany of the misfortunes which the \"Historia Calamitatum\" relates\r\nwere the direct outcome of Abélard\u0027s uncompromising position as a\r\nrationalist, and the document is above all interesting for the\r\npicture it gives of the man himself, against the background of\r\nearly twelfth century France. A few dates will help the general\r\nreader to connect the life surrounding Abélard with other and more\r\nfamiliar facts. William the Conqueror had entered England thirteen\r\nyears before Abélard\u0027s birth. The boy was eight years old when the\r\nConqueror died near Rouen during his struggle with Philip of\r\nFrance. He was seventeen when the First Crusade began, and twenty\r\nwhen the crusaders captured Jerusalem.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00171\"\u003eTwo of the men who most profoundly influenced the times in which\r\nAbélard lived were Hildebrand, famous as Pope Gregory VII, and\r\nLouis VI (the Fat), king of France. It was to Hildebrand that the\r\nChurch owed much of that regeneration of the spirit which gave it\r\nsuch vitality throughout the twelfth century. Hildebrand died,\r\nindeed, when Abélard was only six years old, but he left the Church\r\nsuch a force in the affairs of men as it had never been before. As\r\nfor Louis the Fat, who reigned from 1108 to 1137, it was he who\r\nbegan to lift the royal power in France out of the shadow which the\r\nslothfulness and incompetence of his immediate predecessors, Henry\r\nI and Philip I, had cast over it. Discerning enough to see that the\r\nchief enemies of the crown were the great nobles, and constantly\r\nadvised by a minister of exceptional wisdom, Suger, abbot of St.\r\nDenis, Louis did his utmost to protect the towns and the churches,\r\nand to bring that small part of France wherein his power was felt\r\nout of the anarchy and chaos of the eleventh century.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00172\"\u003eIt was the France of Louis VI and Sager which formed the background\r\nfor the great battle between the realists and the nominalists, the\r\nbattle in which Abélard played no small part. His life was divided\r\nbetween the towns wherein he taught and the Church which\r\nalternately welcomed and denounced him. His fellow-disputants have\r\ntheir places in the history of philosophy; the story of Abélard\u0027s\r\nlove for Héloïse has set him apart, so that he has lived for eight\r\ncenturies less as a fearless thinker and masterly logician than as\r\none of the glowingly romantic figures of the Middle Ages.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003e\"A FRIEND\"\u003c/h4\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00174\"\u003eIt is not known to whom Abélard\u0027s letter was addressed, but it may\r\nbe guessed that the writer intended it to reach the hands of\r\nHéloïse. This actually happened, and the first and most famous\r\nletter from Héloise to Abélard was substantially an answer to the\r\n\"Historia Calamitatum.\"\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eWILLIAM OF CHAMPEAUX\u003c/h4\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00176\"\u003eWilliam of Champeaux (Gulielmus Campellensis) was born about 1070\r\nat Champeaux, near Melun. He studied under Anselm of Laon and\r\nRoscellinus, his training in philosophy thereby being influenced by\r\nboth realism and nominalism. His own inclination, however, was\r\nstrongly towards the former, and it was as a determined proponent\r\nof realism that he began to teach in the school of the cathedral of\r\nNotre Dame, of which he was made canon in 1103. In 1108 he withdrew\r\nto the abbey of St. Victor, and subsequently became bishop of\r\nChâlons-sur-Marne. He died in 1121. As a teacher his influence was\r\nwide; he was a vigorous defender of orthodoxy and a passionate\r\nadversary of the heterodox philosophy of his former master,\r\nRoscellinus. That he and Abélard disagreed was only natural, but\r\nAbélard\u0027s statement that he argued William into abandoning the\r\nbasic principles of his philosophy is certainly untrue.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003e\"THE UNIVERSALS\"\u003c/h4\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00178\"\u003eIt is not within the province of such a note as this to discuss in\r\ndetail the great controversy between the realists and the\r\nnominalists which dominated the philosophical and, to some extent,\r\nthe religious thought of France during the first half of the\r\ntwelfth century. In brief, the realists maintained that the idea is\r\na reality distinct from and independent of the individuals\r\nconstituting it; their motto, \u003ci\u003eUniversalia sunt realia\u003c/i\u003e, was\r\nreadily capable of extension far beyond the Church, and William of\r\nChampeaux himself carried it to the extent of arguing that nothing\r\nis real but the universal. The nominalists, on the other hand,\r\nargued that \"universals\" are mere notions of the mind, and that\r\nindividuals alone are real; their motto was \u003ci\u003eUniversalia sunt\r\nnomina\u003c/i\u003e. Thus the central question in the long controversy\r\nconcerned the reality of abstract or incorporate ideas, and it is\r\nto be observed that the realists held views diametrically opposite\r\nto those which the word \"realism\" today implies. In upholding the\r\nreality of the idea, they were what would now be called idealists,\r\nwhereas their opponents, denying the reality of abstractions and\r\ninsisting on that of the concrete individual or object, were\r\nrealists in the modern sense.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00179\"\u003eThe peculiar importance of this controversy lay in its effect on\r\nthe status of the Church. If nominalism should prevail, then the\r\nChurch would be shorn of much of its authority, for its greatest\r\npower lay in the conception of it as an enduring reality outside of\r\nand above all the individuals who shared in its work. It is not\r\nstrange, then, that the ardent realism of William of Champeaux\r\nshould have been outraged by the nominalistic logic of Abélard.\r\nAbélard, indeed, never went to such extreme lengths as the\r\narch-nominalist, Roscellinus, who was duly condemned for heresy by\r\nthe Council of Soissons in 1092, but he went quite far enough to\r\nwin for himself the undying enmity of the leading realists, who\r\nwere followed by the great majority of the clergy.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003ePORPHYRY\u003c/h4\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00181\"\u003eThe Introduction (\"Isagoge\") to the Categories of Aristotle,\r\nWritten by the Greek scholar and neoplatonist Porphyry in the third\r\ncentury A.D., was translated into Latin by Boetius, and in this\r\nform was extensively used throughout the Middle Ages as a\r\ncompendium of Aristotelian logic. As a philosopher Porphyry was\r\nchiefly important as the immediate successor of Plotinus in the\r\nneoplatonic school at Rome, but his \"Isagoge\" had extraordinary\r\nweight among the medieval logicians.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003ePRISCIAN\u003c/h4\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00183\"\u003eThe \u003ci\u003eInstitutiones grammaticae\u003c/i\u003e of Priscian (Priscianus\r\nCaesariensis) formed the standard grammatical and philological\r\ntextbook of the Middle Ages, its importance being fairly indicated\r\nby the fact that today there exist about a thousand manuscript\r\ncopies of it.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eANSELM\u003c/h4\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00185\"\u003eAnselm of Laon was born somewhere about 1040, and is said to have\r\nstudied under the famous St. Anselm, later archbishop of\r\nCanterbury, at the monastery of Bec. About 1070 he began to teach\r\nin Paris, where he was notably successful. Subsequently he returned\r\nto Laon, where his school of theology and exegetics became the most\r\nfamous one in Europe. His most important work, an interlinear gloss\r\non the Scriptures, was regarded as authoritative throughout the\r\nlater Middle Ages. He died in 1117. That he was something of a\r\npedant is probable, but Abélard\u0027s picture of him is certainly very\r\nfar from doing him justice.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eALBERIC OF RHEIMS AND LOTULPHE THE LOMBARD\u003c/h4\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00187\"\u003eOf these two not much is known beyond what Abélard himself tells\r\nus. ALberic, indeed, won a considerable reputation, and was highly\r\nrecommended to Pope Honorius II by St. Bernard. In 1139 Alberic\r\nseems to have become archbishop of Bourges, dying two years later.\r\nLotulphe the Lombard is referred to by another authority as\r\nLeutaldus Novariensis.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eST. JEROME\u003c/h4\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00189\"\u003eThe enormous scholarship of St. Jerome, born about 340 and dying\r\nSeptember 30, 420, made him not only the foremost authority within\r\nthe Church itself throughout the Middle Ages, but also one of the\r\nchief guides to secular scholarship. Abélard repeatedly quotes from\r\nhim, particularly from his denunciation of the revival of Gnostic\r\nheresies by Jovinianus and from some of his voluminous epistles. He\r\nalso refers extensively to the charges brought against Jerome by\r\nreason of his teaching of women at Rome in the house of Marcella.\r\nOne of his pupils, Paula, a wealthy widow, followed him on his\r\njourney through Palestine, and built three nunneries at Bethlehem,\r\nof which she remained the head up to the time of her death in 404.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eST. AUGUSTINE\u003c/h4\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00191\"\u003eRegarding the position of St. Augustine (354-430) throughout the\r\nMiddle Ages, it is here sufficient to quote a few words of Gustav\r\nKrüger: \"The theological position and influence of Augustine may be\r\nsaid to be unrivalled. No single name has ever exercised such power\r\nover the Christian Church, and no one mind ever made so deep an\r\nimpression on Christian thought. In him scholastics and mystics,\r\npopes and opponents of the papal supremacy, have seen their\r\nchampion. He was the fulcrum on which Luther rested the thoughts by\r\nwhich be sought to lift the past of the Church out of the rut; yet\r\nthe judgment of Catholics still proclaims the ideals of Augustine\r\nas the only sound basis of pbilosopby.\"\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eABBEY OF ST. DENIS\u003c/h4\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00193\"\u003eThe abbey of St. Denis was founded about 625 by Dagobert, son of\r\nLothair II, at some distance from the basilica which the clergy of\r\nParis had erected in the fifth century over the saint\u0027s tomb. Long\r\nrenowned as the place of burial for most of the kings of France,\r\nthe abbey of St. Denis had a particular importance in Abélard\u0027s day\r\nby reason of its close association with the reigning monarch. The\r\nabbot to whom Abélard refers so bitterly was Adam of St. Denis, who\r\nbegan his rule of the monastery about 1094. In 1106 this same Adam\r\nchose as his secretary one of the inmates of the monastery, Suger,\r\ndestined shortly to become the most influential man in France\r\nthrough his position as advisor to Louis VI, and also the foremost\r\nhistorian of his time. Adam died in 1123, and his successor,\r\nreferred to by Abélard in Chapter X, was none other than Suger\r\nhimself. From 1127 to 1137 Suger devoted most of his time to the\r\nreorganization and reform of the monastery of St. Denis. If we are\r\nto believe Abélard, such reform was sorely needed, but other\r\ncontemporary evidence by no means fully sustains Abélard in his\r\ncondemnation of Adam and his fellow monks.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eORIGEN\u003c/h4\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00195\"\u003eThe ALexandrian theological writer Origen, who lived from about 185\r\nto 254, was the most distinguished and the most influential of all\r\nthe theologians of the ancient Church, with the single exception of\r\nAugustine. His incredible industry resulted in such a mass of\r\nWritings that Jerome himself asked in despair, \"Which of us can\r\nread all that he has written?\" Origen\u0027s self-mutilation, referred\r\nto by Abélard, was subsequently used by his enemies as an argument\r\nfor deposing him from his presbyterial status.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eATHANASIUS\u003c/h4\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00197\"\u003eAbélard\u0027s tract regarding the power of God to create Himself was\r\none of the many distant echoes of the great Arian-Athanasian\r\ncontroversy of the fourth century. St. Athanasius, bishop of\r\nAlexandria, well deserved the title conferred on him by the Church\r\nas \"the father of orthodoxy,\" and it was by his name that the\r\ndoctrine of identity of substance (\"the Son is of the same\r\nsubstance with the Father\") became known. Much of the life of\r\nAthanasius was passed amid persecutions at the hands of his\r\nenemies, and on several occasions he was driven into exile.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eRODOLPHE, ARCHBISHOP OF RHEIMS\u003c/h4\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00199\"\u003eRodolphe, or, as some authorities call him, Rudolph or Radulph,\r\nbecame archbishop of Rheims in 1114, after having served as\r\ntreasurer of the cathedral. His importance among the French clergy\r\nis attested by the many references to him in contemporary\r\ndocuments.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eCONON OF PRAENESTE\u003c/h4\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00201\"\u003eConon, bishop of Praeneste, whose real name may have been Conrad,\r\ncame to France as papal legate on at least two occasions. He\r\nrepresented Paschal II in 1115 at ecclesiastical councils held in\r\nBeauvais, Rheims and Châlons; in 1120 he represented Calixtus II at\r\nSoissons on the occasion of Abélard\u0027s trial.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eGEOFFROI OF CHARTRES\u003c/h4\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00203\"\u003eGeoffroi, bishop of Chartres, the second of the name to hold that\r\npost, was subsequently a warm friend of St. Bernard. Abélard\u0027s high\r\nestimate of him is fully confirmed by other contemporary\r\nauthorities.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eABBOT OF ST. MÉDARD\u003c/h4\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00205\"\u003eThis abbot was probably, though not certainly, Anselm of Soissons,\r\nwho became a bishop in 1145. The chronology, however, is confusing.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eDIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE\u003c/h4\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00207\"\u003eThe confusion regarding the identity of Dionysius the Areopagite\r\npersists to this day, at least to the extent that we do not know\r\nthe real name of the fourth or fifth century writer who, under this\r\npseudonym, exercised so profound an influence on medieval thought.\r\nThat he was not the bishop of either Athens or Corinth, nor yet the\r\nDionysius who became the patron saint of France, is clear enough.\r\nOf the actual Dionysius the Areopagite we know practically nothing.\r\nHe is mentioned in Acts, xvii, 34, as one of those Athenians who\r\nbelieved when they had heard Paul preach on Mars Hill. A century or\r\nmore later we learn from another Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, that\r\nDionysius the Areopagite was the first bishop of Athens, a\r\nstatement of doubtful value. In the fourth or fifth century a Greek\r\ntheological writer of extraordinary erudition assumed the name of\r\nDionysius the Areopagite, and as his works exerted an enormous\r\ninfluence on later scholarship, it was quite natural that the\r\npersonal legend of the real Dionysius should have been extended\r\ncorrespondingly.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00208\"\u003eThe Hilduin referred to by Abélard, who was abbot of St. Denis from\r\n814 to 840, was directly responsible for the extreme phase of this\r\nextension. Accepting, as most of his contemporaries unquestioningly\r\ndid, the identity of the theological writer with the Dionysius\r\nmentioned in Acts and spoken of as bishop of Athens, Hilduin went\r\none step further, and demonstrated that this Dionysius was likewise\r\nthe Dionysius (Denis) who had been sent into Gaul and martyred at\r\nCatulliacus, the modern St. Denis. There is no evidence to support\r\nHilduin\u0027s contention, and the chronology of Gregory of Tours is\r\nquite sufficient to disprove it, but none the less it was\r\nenthusiastically accepted in France, and above all by the monks of\r\nSt. Denis.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00209\"\u003eThere was, however, a persistent doubt as to the identity of the\r\nDionysius whose writings had become so famous. Bede, the authority\r\nquoted by Abélard, was, of course, wrong in saying that he was the\r\nbishop of Corinth, but anything which tended to shake the triple\r\nidentity, established by Hilduin, of the Dionysius of Athens who\r\nlistened to St. Paul, of the pseudo-Areopagite whose works were\r\nknown to every medieval scholar, and of the St. Denis who had\r\nbecome the patron saint of France, was naturally anathematized by\r\nthe monks who bore the saint\u0027s name. Bede and Abélard were by no\r\nmeans accurate, but Bede\u0027s inkling of the truth was quite enough to\r\nget Abélard into serious trouble.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eTHEOBALD OF CHAMPAGNE\u003c/h4\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00211\"\u003eTheobald II, Count of Blois, Meaux and Champagne, was one of the\r\nmost powerful nobles in France, and by the extent of his influence\r\nfully deserved the title of \"the Great\" by which he was\r\nsubsequently known. His domain included the modern departments of\r\nArdennes, Marne, Aube and Haute-Marne, with part of Aisne, Seine-et-Marne,\r\nYonne and Meuse. Furthermore, his mother Adela, was the daughter of\r\nWilliam I of England, and his younger brother, Stephen, was King of\r\nEngland from 1135 to 1154. Theobald became Count of Blois in 1102,\r\nCount of Champagne in 1125, and Count of Troyes in 1128. Had he so\r\nchosen, he might likewise have become Duke of Normandy after the\r\ndeath of his uncle, Henry I of England, in 1135. He died in 1152.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eSTEPHEN THE SENESCHAL\u003c/h4\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00213\"\u003eThere is much doubt as to whether this Stephen was Stephen de\r\nGarland, \u003ci\u003edapifer\u003c/i\u003e, or another Stephen, who was royal chancellor\r\nunder Louis the Fat. A charter of the year 1124 is signed by both\r\nStephen \u003ci\u003edapifer\u003c/i\u003e and Stephen \u003ci\u003ecancellarius\u003c/i\u003e. Probably, however,\r\nthe authority identifying Stephen \u003ci\u003edapifer\u003c/i\u003e as Stephen de Garland,\r\nseneschal of France, is trustworthy.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eTHE PARACLETE\u003c/h4\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00215\"\u003eAmong the terms which are characteristic of, or even peculiar to,\r\nthe Gospel of St. John is that of \"the Paraclete,\" rendered in the\r\nKing games version \"the Comforter.\" The Greek word of which\r\n\"Paraclete\" is a reproduction literally means \"advocate,\" one\r\ncalled to aid; hence \"intercessor.\" The doctrine of the Paraclete\r\nappears chiefly in John, xiv and xv. For example: (xiv, 16-17) \"And\r\nI will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter\r\n(Paraclete) that be may abide with you for ever; even the spirit of\r\ntruth.\" Again: (xiv, 26) \"But the Comforter (Paraclete), which is\r\nthe Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall\r\nteach you all things.\" With John\u0027s words as a basis, the Paraclete\r\ncame to be regarded as identical with the Third Person of the\r\nTrinity, but always with the special attributes of consolation and\r\nintercession.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eNORBERT OF PRÉMONTRÉ\u003c/h4\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00217\"\u003eIn 1120 there was established at Prémontré, a desert place in the\r\ndiocese of Laon, a monastery of canons regular who followed the\r\nso-called Rule of St. Augustine, but with supplementary statutes\r\nwhich made the life one of exceptional severity. The head of this\r\nmonastery was Norbert, subsequently canonized. His order received\r\npapal approbation in 1126, and thereafter it spread rapidly\r\nthroughout Europe; two hundred years later there were no less than\r\nseventeen hundred Norbertine or Premonstratensian monasteries.\r\nNorbert himself became archbishop of Magdeburg, and it was in\r\nGermany that the most notable work of his order was accomplished.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eBERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX\u003c/h4\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00219\"\u003eRegarding the illustrious St. Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, it is\r\nneedless here to say more than that his own age recognized in him\r\nthe embodiment of the highest ideal of medieval monasticism.\r\nIntellectually inferior to Abélard and to some others of those over\r\nwhom he triumphed, he was their superior in moral strength, in\r\nzeal, and above all in the power of making others share his own\r\nenthusiasms. Born in 1090, he was renowned as one of the foremost\r\nof French churchmen before he was thirty years old; his share in\r\nthe contest which followed the death of Pope Honorius II in 1130\r\nmade him one of the most commanding figures in all Europe. It was\r\nto him that the Cistercian order owed its extraordinary expansion\r\nin the twelfth century. That Abélard should have fallen before so\r\nredoubtable an adversary (see the note on Pierre Abélard) is in no\r\nway surprising, but there can be no doubt that St. Bernard\u0027s\r\n\"persecution\" of Abélard was inspired solely by high ideals and an\r\nintense zeal for the truth as Bernard perceived it.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eABBEY OF ST. GILDAS\u003c/h4\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00221\"\u003eTraditionally, at least, this abbey was the oldest one in Brittany.\r\nAccording to the anonymous author of the Life and Deeds of St.\r\nGildas, it was founded during the reign of Childeric, the second of\r\nthe Merovingian kings, in the fifth century. Be that as it may, its\r\nauthentic history had been extensive before Abélard assumed the\r\ndirection of its affairs. His gruesome picture of the conditions\r\nwhich prevailed there cannot, of course, be accepted as wholly\r\naccurate, but even allowing for gross exaggeration, the life of the\r\nmonks must have been quite sufficiently scandalous. It was\r\napparently in the closing period of Abélard\u0027s sojourn at the abbey\r\nof St. Gildas that he wrote the \"Historia Calamitatum.\" He endured\r\nthe life there for nearly ten years; the date of his flight is not\r\ncertain, but it cannot have been far from 1134 or 1135.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\u003eLEO IX\u003c/h4\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp id=\"id00223\"\u003eLeo IX, pope from 1049 to 1054, was a native of Upper Alsace. It\r\nwas at the Easter synod of 1049 that he enjoined anew the celibacy\r\nof the clergy, in connection with which the letter quoted by\r\nAbélard was written.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003c/article\u003e"}],"SectionSequence":["Back Link","Work Title","Deck","Author","Period","Era","Composition","Date Note","Region","Terra Avita","Terra Avita Region","Modern Country","Original Title","Language","Primary Discipline","Secondary Discipline","Tradition","Full Versions","Core Thesis","Classification","Arguments","Influence","Significance","Evidence Note","Full Text"],"Counts":{"ContextCards":3,"GeoCards":4,"DisciplineCards":2,"Links":11,"Sections":25,"Styles":3,"Scripts":1}}