HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH - CHAPTER XII.

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SCHOLASTIC AND MYSTIC THEOLOGY.

§ 95. Literature and General Introduction.

Literature: I.-The works Of Anselm, Abaelard, Peter The Lombard, Hugo Of St. Victor, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventura, Duns Scotus, and other Schoolmen.

II.-R. D. Hampden (bishop of Hereford, d. 1868): The Scholastic Philos. considered in its Relation to Christ. Theol., Bampton Lectures, Oxf., 1832, 3d ed. 1848.-B. Haureau: De la philos. scholast., 2 vols. Paris, 1850.-W. Kaulich: Gesch. d. scholast. Philos., Prag, 1863.-C. Prantl: Gesch. d. Logik im Abendlande, 4 vols. Leip., 1861-1870:-P. D. Maurice (d. 1872): Med. Philos., London, 1870.-*A. Stockl (Rom. Cath.): Gesch. d. Philos. d. Mittelalters, Mainz, 3 vols. 1864-1866. Vol. I. covers the beginnings of Scholasticism from Isidore of Seville to Peter the Lombard; Vol. II., the period of its supremacy; Vol. III., the period of its decline down to Jesuitism and Jansenism.-R. Reuter (Prof. of Ch. Hist. at Gottingen, d. 1889): Gesch. d. Rel. Aufklarung im Mittelalter, 2 vols. Berlin, 1875-1877. Important for the sceptical and rationalistic tendencies of the M. A.-TH. Harper: The Metaphysics of the School, London, 1880.-K. Werner (Rom. Cath.): D. Scholastik des spateren Mittelalters, 4 vols. Wien, 1881-1887. Begins with Duns Scotus.-The relevant chapters in the Histories of Doctrine, by Harnack, Loofs, Fisher, Seeberg, Sheldon, and the Rom. Cath. divines, and J. Bach: Dogmengesch. d. Mittelalters, 2 vols. 1873-1875, and *J. Schwane: Dogmengesch. d. mittleren Zeit, 1882.-The Histories of Philos. by Ritter, Erdmann, Ueberweg-Heinze, and Scholasticism, by Prof. Seth, in Enc. Brit. XXI. 417-431.

Scholasticism is the term given to the theology of the Middle Ages. It forms a distinct body of speculation, as do the works of the Fathers and the writings of the Reformers. The Fathers worked in the quarries of Scripture and, in conflict with heresy, wrought out, one by one, its teachings into dogmatic statements. The Schoolmen collected, analyzed and systematized these dogmas and argued their reasonableness against all conceivable objections. The Reformers, throwing off the yoke of human authority, and disparaging the Schoolmen, returned to the fountain of Scripture, and restated its truths.

The leading peculiarities of Scholasticism are that it subjected the reason to Church authority and sought to prove the dogmas of the Church independently by dialectics. As for the Scriptures, the Schoolmen accepted their authority and show an extensive acquaintance with their pages from Genesis to Revelation. With a rare exception, like Abaelard, they also accepted implicitly the teaching of the Fathers as accurately reflecting the Scriptures. A distinction was made by Alexander of Hales and others between the Scriptures which were treated as truth, veritas, and the teaching of the Fathers, which was treated as authority, auctoritas.

It was not their concern to search in the Scriptures for new truth or in any sense to reopen the investigation of the Scriptures. The task they undertook was to confirm what they had inherited. For this reason they made no original contributions to exegesis and biblical theology. They did not pretend to have discovered any new dogmas. They were purveyors of the dogma they had inherited from the Fathers.

It was the aim of the Schoolmen to accomplish two things,-to reconcile dogma and reason, and to arrange the doctrines of the Church in an orderly system called summa theologiae. These systems, like our modern encyclopaedias, were intended to be exhaustive. It is to the credit of the human mind that every serious problem in the domains of religion and ethics was thus brought under the inspection of the intellect. The Schoolmen, however, went to the extreme of introducing into their discussions every imaginable question,-questions which, if answered, would do no good except to satisfy a prurient curiosity. Anselm gives the best example of treatises on distinct subjects, such as the existence of God, the necessity of the Incarnation, and the fall of the devil. Peter the Lombard produced the most clear, and Thomas Aquinas the most complete and finished systematic bodies of divinity.

With intrepid confidence these busy thinkers ventured upon the loftiest speculations, raised and answered all sorts of doubts and ran every accepted dogma through a fiery ordeal to show its invulnerable nature. They were the knights of theology, its Godfreys and Tancreds. Philosophy with them was their handmaid,-ancilla,-dialectics their sword and lance.

In a rigid dialectical treatment, the doctrines of Christianity are in danger of losing their freshness and vital power, and of being turned into a theological corpse. This result was avoided in the case of the greatest of the mediaeval theologians by their religious fervor. Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, and Bonaventura were men of warm piety and, like Augustine, they combined with the metaphysical element a mystical element, with the temper of speculation the habit of meditation and prayer.

He is far from the truth who imagines the mediaeval speculations to be mere spectacular balloonings, feats of intellectual acrobatism. They were, on the contrary, serious studies pursued with a solemn purpose. The Schoolmen were moved with a profound sense of the presence of God and the sacrifice of the cross, and such treatments as the ethical portions of Thomas Aquinas' writings show deep interest in the sphere of human conduct. For this reason, as well as for the reason that they stand for the theological literature of more than two centuries, these writings live, and no doubt will continue to live.1312

Following Augustine, the Schoolmen started with the principle that faith precedes knowledge-fides praecedit intellectum. Or, as Anselm also put it, "I believe that I may understand; I do not understand that I may believe" credo ut intelligam, non intelligo ut credam. They quoted as proof text, Isa. 7:9. "If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established." Abaelard was an exception, and reversed the order, making knowledge precede faith; but all arrived at the same result. Revelation and reason, faith and science, theology and philosophy agree, for they proceed from the one God who cannot contradict himself.

In addition to the interest which attaches to Scholasticism as a distinct body of intellectual effort, is its importance as the ruling theology in the Roman Catholic Church to this day. Such dogmas as the treatment of heresy, the supremacy of the Church over the State, the immaculate conception, and the seven sacraments, as stated by the Schoolmen, are still binding, or at any rate, they have not been formally renounced. Leo XIII. bore fresh witness to this when, in his encyclical of Aug. 4, 1879, he pronounced the theology of Thomas Aquinas the standard of Catholic orthodoxy, and the safest guide of Christian philosophy in the battle of faith with the scepticism of the nineteenth century.

The Scholastic systems, like all the distinctive institutions and movements of the Middle Ages, were on an imposing scale. The industry of their authors cannot fail to excite amazement. Statement follows statement with tedious but consequential necessity and precision until chapter is added to chapter and tome is piled upon tome, and the subject has been looked at in every possible aspect and been exhausted. Duns Scotus produced thirteen folio volumes, and perhaps died when he was only thirty-four. The volumes of Albertus Magnus are still more extensive. These theological systems are justly compared with the institution of the mediaeval papacy, and the creations of Gothic architecture, imposing, massive, and strongly buttressed. The papacy subjected all kingdoms to its divine authority. Architecture made all materials and known mechanical arts tributary to worship. The Schoolmen used all the forces of logic and philosophy to vindicate the orthodox system of theology, but they used much wood and straw in their constructions, as the sounder exegesis and more scriptural theology of the Reformers and these later days have shown.

§ 96. Sources and Development of Scholasticism.

The chief feeders of Scholasticism were the writings of Augustine and Aristotle. The former furnished the matter, the latter the form; the one the dogmatic principles, the other the dialectic method.

The Augustine, who ruled the thought of the Middle Ages, was the churchly, sacramentarian, anti-Manichaean, and anti- Donatist theologian. It was the same Augustine, and yet another, to whom Luther and Calvin appealed for their doctrines of sin and grace. How strange that the same mighty intellect who helped to rear the structure of Scholastic divinity should have aided the Reformers in pulling it down and rearing another structure, at once more Scriptural and better adapted to the practical needs of life!

Aristotle was, in the estimation of the Middle Ages, the master philosophical thinker. The Schoolmen show their surpassing esteem for him in calling him again and again "the philosopher." Dante excluded both him and Virgil as pagans from paradise and purgatory and placed them in the vestibule of the inferno, where, however, they are exempt from actual suffering. Aristotle was regarded as a forerunner of Christian truth, a John the Baptist in method and knowledge of natural things-precursor Christi in naturalibus. Until the thirteenth century, his works were only imperfectly known. The Categories and the de interpretatione were known to Abaelard and other Schoolmen in the Latin version of Boethius, and three books of the Organon to John of Salisbury. His Physics and Metaphysics became known about 1200, and all his works were made accessible early in the thirteenth century through the mediation of the Arab philosophers, Avicenna, d. 1037, Averrhoes, d. 1198, and Abuacer, d. 1185, and through Jewish sources. Roger Bacon laments the mistakes of translations made from the Arabic, by Michael Scot, Gerard of Cremona, and others.1313

At first the Stagyrite was looked upon with suspicion or even prohibited by the popes and synods as adapted to breed heresy and spiritual pride.1314 But, from 1250 on, his authority continued supreme. The saying of Gottfried of St. Victor became current in Paris.

Every one is excluded and banned

Who does not come clad in Aristotle's armor. 1315

The Reformers shook off his yoke and Luther, in a moment of temper at the degenerate Schoolmen of his day, denounced him as "the accursed pagan Aristotle" and in his Babylonish Captivity called the mediaeval Church "the Thomistic or Aristotelian Church."

The line of the Schoolmen begins in the last year of the eleventh century with Roscellinus and Anselm. Two centuries before, John Scotus Erigena had anticipated some of their discussions of fundamental themes, and laid down the principle that true philosophy and true religion are one. But he does not seem to have had any perceptible influence on Scholastic thought. The history divides itself into three periods: the rise of Scholasticism, its full bloom, and its decline.1316 To the first period belong Anselm, d. 1109, Roscellinus, d. about 1125, Abaelard, d. 1142, Bernard, d. 1153, Hugo de St. Victor, d. 1161, Richard of St. Victor, d. 1173, and Gilbert of Poictiers, d. 1154. The chief names of the second period are Peter the Lombard, d. 1160, Alexander of Hales, d. 1243, Albertus Magnus, d. 1280, Thomas Aquinas, d. 1274, Bonaventura, d. 1274, Roger Bacon, d. 1294, and Duns Scotus, d. 1308. To the period of decline belong, among others, Durandus, d. 1334, Bradwardine, d. 1349, and Ockam, d. 1367. England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain made contributions to this galaxy of men. Gabriel Biel, professor at Tubingen, who died 1495, is usually called the last of the Schoolmen. Almost all the great Schoolmen were monks.

The two centuries included between the careers of Anselm and Duns Scotus show decided modifications of opinion on important questions such as the immaculate conception, and in regard to the possibility of proving from pure reason such doctrines as the incarnation and the Trinity. These two doctrines Thomas Aquinas, as well as Duns Scotus and Ockam, declared to be outside the domain of pure ratiocination. Even the existence of God and the immortality of the soul came to be regarded by Duns Scotus and the later Schoolmen as mysteries which were to be received solely upon the authority of the Church. The argument from probability was emphasized in the last stages of Scholastic thought as it had not been before.

In their effort to express the minutest distinctions of thought, the Schoolmen invented a new vocabulary unknown to classical Latin, including such words as ens, absolutum identitas quidditas, haecceitas, aliquiditas, aleitas.1317 The sophistical speculations which they allowed themselves were, for the most part, concerned with the angels, the Virgin Mary, the devil, the creation, and the body of the resurrection. Such questions as the following were asked and most solemnly discussed by the leading Schoolmen. Albertus Magnus asked whether it was harder for God to create the universe than to create man and whether the understandings of angels are brighter in the morning or in the evening. "Who sinned most, Adam or Eve?" was a favorite question with Anselm, Hugo de St. Victor,1318 and others. Alexander of Hales attempted to settle the hour of the day at which Adam sinned and, after a long discussion, concluded it was at the ninth hour, the hour at which Christ expired. Bonaventura debated whether several angels can be in one place at the same time, whether one angel can be in several places at the same time, and whether God loved the human race more than He loved Christ.1319 Anselm, in his work on the Trinity, asked whether God could have taken on the female sex and why the Holy Spirit did not become incarnate. Of the former question, Walter of St. Victor, speaking of Peter the Lombard, very sensibly said that it would have been more rational for him to have asked why the Lombard did not appear on earth as an ass than for the Lombard to ask whether God could have become incarnate in female form. The famous discussion over the effect the eating of the host would have upon a mouse will be taken up in connection with the Lord's Supper. Albertus Magnus, Bonaventura, Thomas Aquinas, and others pondered over the problem. It was asked by Robert Pullen whether man in the resurrection will receive back the rib he lost in Eden, and whether a man will recover all the clippings of his finger nails.

Such endless discussions have been ridiculed as puerile and frivolous, though, as has already been said, they grew out of the desire to be exhaustive. At last and justly, they brought Scholasticism into disrepute. While it was losing itself in the clouds and mists of things transcendental, it neglected the earth at its feet. As the papacy passed sentence upon itself by intolerable ambition, so Scholasticism undermined its authority by intellectual sophistries and was set aside by the practical interests of the Renaissance and Humanism and by simple faith, searching through the Scriptures, to reach the living sympathy of Christ.1320

§ 97. Realism and Nominalism.

The underlying philosophical problem of the Scholastic speculations was the real and independent existence of general or generic concepts, called universalia or universals. Do they necessarily involve substantial being? On this question the Schoolmen were divided into two camps, the Realists and the Nominalists. 1321 The question, which receives little attention now, was regarded as most important in the Middle Ages.

Realism taught that the universals are not mere generalizations of the mind but have a real existence. Following Plato, as he is represented by Aristotle, one class of Realists held that the universals are creative types, exemplars in the divine mind. Their view was stated in the expression-universalia ante rem - that is, the universals exist before the individual, concrete object. The Aristotelian Realists held that the universals possess a real existence, but exist only in individual things. This was the doctrine of universalia in re. Humanity, for example, is a universal having a real existence. Socrates partakes of it, and he is an individual man, distinct from other men. Anselm, representing the Platonic school, treated the universal humanity as having independent existence by itself. Duns Scotus, representing the second theory, found in the universal the basis of all classification and gives to it only in this sense a real existence.

The Nominalists taught that universals or general conceptions have no antecedent existence. They are mere names-nomina, flatus vocis, voces - and are derived from a comparison of individual things and their qualities. Thus beauty is a conception of the mind gotten from the observation of objects which are beautiful. The individual things are first observed and the universal, or abstract conception, is derived from it. This doctrine found statement in the expression universalia post rem, the universal becomes known after the individual. A modification of this view went by the name of Conceptualism, or the doctrine that universals have existence as conceptions in the mind, but not in real being.1322

The starting-point for this dialectical distinction may have been a passage in Porphyry's Isagoge, as transmitted by Boethius. Declining to enter into a discussion of the question, Porphyry asks whether the universals are to be regarded as having distinct substantial existence apart from tangible things or whether they were only conceptions of the mind, having substantial existence only in tangible things. 1323 The distinction assumed practical importance when it was applied to such theological doctrines as the Trinity, the atonement, and original sin.

The theory of Realism was called in question in the eleventh century by Roscellinus, a contemporary of Anselm and the teacher of Abaelard, who, as it would seem, advocated Nominalism.1324 Our knowledge of his views is derived almost exclusively from the statements of his two opponents, Anselm and Abaelard. He was serving as canon of Compiegne in the diocese of Soissons, 1092, when he was obliged to recant his alleged tritheism, which he substituted for the doctrine of the Trinity.

The views of this theologian called forth Anselm's treatise on the Trinity, and Abaelard despised him as a quack dialectician. 1325 Anselm affirmed that Roscellinus' heretical views on the Trinity were the immediate product of his false philosophical principle, the denial that universals have real existence. Roscellinus called the three persons of the Godhead three substances, as Scotus Erigena had done before. These persons were three distinct beings equal in power and will, but each separate from the other and complete in himself, like three men or angels. These three could not be one God in the sense of being of the same essence, for then the Father and the Holy Spirit would have had to become incarnate as well as the Son.

Defending the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, Anselm proceeded on the basis of strict realism and declared that the three persons represented three relations and not three substances. Fountain, brook, and pond are three; yet the same water is in each one and we could not say the brook is the fountain or the fountain is the pond. The water of the brook may be carried through a pipe, but in that case it would not be the fountain which was carried through, nor the pond. So in the same way, the Godhead became incarnate without involving the incarnation of the Father and Holy Spirit.

The decision of the synod of Soissons and Anselm's argument drove Nominalism from the field and it was not again publicly avowed till the fourteenth century when it was revived by the energetic and practical mind of Ockam, by Durandus and others. It was for a time fiercely combated by councils and King Louis XI., but was then adopted by many of the great teachers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

§ 98. Anselm of Canterbury.

Literature: The Works of Anselm. First complete ed. by Gerberon, Paris, 1675, reprinted in Migne, vols. 158, 159.-Anselm's opuscula, trans. Chicago, 1903, pp. 288.-Anselm's Devotions, trans. by Pusey, Oxf., 1856, London, 1872, and by C. C. J. Webb., London, 1903.-Trans. of Cur Deus homo in Anc. and Mod. Library, London.-The Life of Anselm by his secretary and devoted friend Eadmer: de vita Anselmi and Historia novorum in Migne, and ed. by Rule in Rolls series, London, 1884.-John of Salisbury's Life, written to further Anselm's canonization by Alexander III., Migne, 199: 1009-1040, is based upon Eadmer.-William Of Malmesbury in Gesta Pontificum adds some materials.-Modern Lives, by *F. R. Hasse, 2 vols. Leip., 1843-1852, Abrdg. trans. by *W. Turner, London, 1850. One of the best of Hist. monographs.-*C. De Remusat: Paris, 1853, last ed., 1868.-*Dean R. W. Church (d. 1890): London, new ed., 1877 (good account of Anselm's career, but pays little attention to his philosophy and theology).-M. Rule: 2 vols. London, 1883, eulogistic and ultramontane.-P. Ragey: 2 vols. Paris, 1890.-J. M. Rigg: London, 1896.-A. C. Welch, Edinburgh, 1901.-*W. R. W. Stephens in Dict. Natl. Biog., II. 10-31.-P. Schaff, in Presb. and Ref'd Review, Jan., 1894.-*Ed. A. Freeman: The Reign of William Rufus, 2 vols. London, 1882.-H. Bohmer: Kirche u. Staat in England u. in der Normandie im XI. u. XIIten Jahrh., Leip., 1899.-Anselm's philosophy is discussed by Ritter, Erdmann, and Ueberweg-Heinze in their Histories of Philos.; his theology is treated by Baur: Gesch. d. Christl. Lehre. von d. Versohnung, Tubingen, 1838, 142-189.-Ritschl: Rechtfertigung u. Versohnung, and in the Histories of Doctrine.-Kolling: D. satisfactio vicaria, 2 vols., Gutersloh, 1897-1899. A vigorous presentation of the Anselmic view.-Leipoldt: D. Begriff meritum in Anselm, in Theol. Studien u. Kritiken, 1904.-Le Chanoine Poree: Hist. de l'Abbaye du Bec, Paris, 1901.

Anselm of Canterbury, 1033-1109, the first of the great Schoolmen, was one of the ablest and purest men of the mediaeval Church. He touched the history of his age at many points. He was an enthusiastic advocate of monasticism. He was archbishop of Canterbury and fought the battle of the Hildebrandian hierarchy against the State in England. His Christian meditations give him a high rank in its annals of piety. His profound speculation marks one of the leading epochs in the history of theology and won for him a place among the doctors of the Church. While Bernard was greatest as a monk, Anselm was greatest as a theologian. He was the most original thinker the Church had seen since the days of Augustine.1326

Life.-Anselm was born at Aosta, in Piedmont, at the foot of the great St. Bernard, which divides Italy from western Switzerland. 1327 He had a pious mother, Ermenberga. His father, Gundulf, a worldly and rude nobleman, set himself violently against his son's religious aspirations, but on his death-bed himself assumed the monastic garb to escape perdition.

In his childish imagination, Anselm conceived God Almighty as seated on a throne at the top of the Alps, and in a dream, he climbed up the mountain to meet Him. Seeing, on his way, the king's maidens engaged in the harvest field, for it was Autumn, neglecting their work he determined to report their negligence to the king. The lad was most graciously received and asked whence he came and what he desired. The king's kindness made him forget all about the charges he was intending to make. Then, refreshed with the whitest of bread, he descended again to the valley. The following day he firmly believed he had actually been in heaven and eaten at the Lord's table. This was the story he told after he had ascended the chair of Canterbury.

A quarrel with his father led to Anselm's leaving his home. He set his face toward the West and finally settled in the Norman abbey of Le Bec, then under the care of his illustrious countryman Lanfranc. Here he studied, took orders, and, on Lanfranc's transfer to the convent of St. Stephen at Caen, 1063, became prior, and, in 1078, abbot. At Bec he wrote most of his works. His warm devotion to the monastic life appears in his repeated references to it in his letters and in his longing to get back to the convent after he had been made archbishop.

In 1093, he succeeded Lanfranc as archbishop of Canterbury. His struggle with William Rufus and Henry I. over investiture has already been described (pp. 88-93). During his exile on the Continent he attended a synod at Bari, where he defended the Latin doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit against the Greek bishops who were present.1328

The archbishop's last years in England were years of quiet, and he had a peaceful end. They lifted him from the bed and placed him on ashes on the floor. There, "as morning was breaking, on the Wednesday before Easter," April 21, 1109, the sixteenth year of his pontificate and the seventy- sixth of his life, he slept in peace, as his biographer Eadmer says, "having given up his spirit into the hands of his Creator." He lies buried in Canterbury Cathedral at the side of Lanfranc.

Anselm was a man of spotless integrity, single devotion to truth and righteousness, patient in suffering, and revered as a saint before his official canonization in 1494.1329 Dante associates him in Paradise with Nathan, the seer, and Chrysostom, both famous for rebuking vice in high places, and with the Calabrian prophet, Joachim.1330

Writings.-Anselm's chief works in the departments of theology are his Monologium and Proslogium, which present proofs for God's existence, and the Cur Deus homo, "Why God became Man," a treatise on the atonement. He also wrote on the Trinity against Roscellinus; on original sin, free will, the harmony of foreknowledge and foreordination, and the fall of the devil. To these theological treatises are to be added a number of writings of a more practical nature, homilies, meditations, and four hundred and twelve letters in which we see him in different relations, as a prelate of the Church, a pastor, as a teacher giving advice to pupils, and as a friend.1331 His correspondence shows him in his human relations. His meditations and prayers reveal the depth of his piety. His theological treatises betray the genius of his intellect. In extent they are far less voluminous than the works of Thomas Aquinas and other Schoolmen of the later period.

Theology.-Anselm was one of those rare characters in whom lofty reason and childlike faith work together in perfect harmony. Love to God was the soul of his daily life and love to God is the burning centre of his theology. It was not doubt that led him to speculation, but enthusiasm for truth and devotion to God. His famous proposition, which Schleiermacher adopted as a motto for his own theology, is that faith precedes knowledge-fides praecedit intellectum. Things divine must be a matter of experience before they can be comprehended by the intellect. "He who does not believe," Anselm said, "has not felt, and he who has not felt, does not understand." 1332 Christ must come to the intellect through the avenue of faith and not to faith through the avenue of intellect. 1333 On the other hand, Anselm declared himself against blind belief, and calls it a sin of neglect when he who has faith, does not strive after knowledge.1334

These views, in which supernaturalism and rationalism are harmonized, form the working principle of the Anselmic theology. The two sources of knowledge are the Bible and the teaching of the Church which are in complete agreement with one another and are one with true philosophy. 1335 Anselm had a profound veneration for the great African teacher, Augustine, and his agreement with him in spirit and method secured for him the titles "the second Augustine" and the, Tongue of Augustine."

Anselm made two permanent contributions to theology, his argument for the existence of God and his theory of the atonement.

The ontological argument, which he stated, constitutes an epoch in the history of the proofs for God's existence. It was first laid clown in the Monologium or Soliloquy, which he called the example of meditation on the reasonableness of faith, but mixed with cosmological elements. Starting from the idea that goodness and truth must have an existence independent of concrete things, Anselm ascends from the conception of what is relatively good and great, to Him who is absolutely good and great.

In the Proslogium, or Allocution, the ontological argument is presented in its purest form. Anselm was led to its construction by the desire to find out a single argument, sufficient in itself, to prove the divine existence. The argument was the result of long reflection and rooted in piety and prayer. Day and night the author was haunted with the idea that God's existence could be so proved. He was troubled over it to such a degree that at times he could not sleep or take his meals. Finally, one night, during vigils, the argument stood clearly before his mind in complete outline. The notes were written down while the impression was still fresh in Anselm's mind. The first copy was lost; the second was inadvertently broken to pieces.

Anselm's argument, which is the highest example of religious meditation and scholastic reasoning, is prefaced with an exhortation and the words, "I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but I believe in order that I may understand, for of this I feel sure, that, if I did not believe, I would not understand."

The reasoning starts from the idea the mind has of God, and proceeds to the affirmation of the necessity of God's objective existence. The mind has a concept of something than which nothing greater can be conceived.1336 This even the fool has, when he says in his heart, "there is no God, " Ps. 14:1. He grasps the conception when he listens, and what he grasps is in his mind. This something, than which nothing greater can be conceived, cannot exist solely in the mind. For, if it existed solely in the mind, then it would be possible to think of it as existing also in reality (objectively), and that would be something greater.1337 This is impossible. This thing, therefore, than which nothing greater can be conceived, exists both in the mind and in reality. This is God. "So truly," exclaims Anselm, "dost Thou exist, O Lord God, that it is not possible to conceive of Thee as not existing. For, if any mind could conceive of anything better than Thou art, then the creature would ascend above the Creator and become His judge, which is supremely absurd. Everything else besides Thyself can be conceived of as not existing."

The syllogism, compact as its presentation is and precise as its language seems to be, is nevertheless defective, as a logical statement. It begs the question. It offends against the principle that deductions from a definition are valid only on the supposition that the thing defined exists. The definition and the statement of God's existence are in the major premise, "there is something than which nothing greater can be conceived." And yet it was the objective existence of this being, Anselm wanted to prove. Setting this objection aside, there is the other fatal objection that objective existence is not a predicate. Objective being is implied when we affirm anything. This objection was stated by Kant.1338 Again, Anselm confused, as synonymous, understanding a thing and having a conception in the understanding.1339

The reasoning of the Proslogium was attacked by the monk Gaunilo of Marmontier, near Bec, in his Liber pro insipiente. He protested against the inference from the subjective conception to objective reality on the ground that by the same method we might argue from any of our conceptions to the reality of the thing conceived, as for example for the existence of a lost island, the Atlantis. "That, than which nothing greater can be thought," does not exist in the mind in any other way than does the perfection of such an island. The real existence of a thing must be known before we can predicate anything of it. Gaunilo's objection Anselm answered by declaring that the idea of the lost island was not a necessary conception while that of the highest being was, and that it was to it alone his argument applied.

Untenable as Anselm's argument is logically, it possesses a strong fascination, and contains a great truth. The being of God is an intuition of the mind, which can only be explained by God's objective existence. The modern theory of correlation lends its aid to corroborate what was, after all, fundamental in the Anselmic presentation, namely, that the idea of God in the mind must have corresponding to it a God who really exists. Otherwise, we are left to the mystery which is perhaps still greater, how such an idea could ever have taken firm and general hold of the human mind.1340

The doctrine of the atonement.-With the Cur Deus homo, "Why God became Man," a new chapter opens in the development of the doctrine of the atonement. The treatise, which is in the form of a dialogue, is the author's most elaborate work, and he thought the argument sufficient to break down the objections of Jew and Pagan to the Christian system.

Anselm was the first to attempt to prove the necessity of the incarnation and death of the Son of God by the processes of pure reason. He argued that the world cannot be redeemed by an arbitrary decree of God, nor through man or angel. Man is under the domination of the devil, deserves punishment, and is justly punished; but the devil torments him without right,1341 for he does not do it by the authority of God, but from malice. The handwriting of ordinances against the sinner (Col. 2:14) is not a note due the devil, but the sentence of God that he who sinned should be the servant of sin.

God cannot allow his original purpose to be thwarted. Sin must be forgiven, but how? Man owes subjection to God's will. Sin is denying to God the honor due him.1342 Satisfaction must be rendered to justice before there can be forgiveness. Bare restitution, however, is not a sufficient satisfaction. For his "contumely," man must give back more than he has taken. He must compensate God's honor. 1343 Just as he who has inflicted a wound must not only heal the wound, but pay damages to satisfy the demands of violated honor.

All sin, then, must either receive punishment or be covered by satisfaction. Can man make this satisfaction? No. Were it possible for him to lead a perfectly holy life, from the moment he became conscious of his debt, he would be simply doing his duty for that period. The debt of the past would remain unsettled. But sin, having struck at the roots of man's being, he is not able to lead a perfect life.

God's justice, then, man is not able to satisfy. Man ought, but cannot. God need not, but does. For, most foreign to God would it be to allow man, the most precious of his creatures, to perish. But as God himself must make the satisfaction, and man ought to make it, the satisfaction must be made by one who is both God and man, that is, the God-man. 1344

To make satisfaction, the God-man must give back to God something he is not under obligation to render. A life of perfect obedience he owes. Death he does not owe, for death is the wages of sin, and he had no sin. By submitting to death, he acquired merit. Because this merit is infinite in value, being connected with the person of the infinite Son of God, it covers the infinite guilt of the sinner and constitutes the satisfaction required.

Anselm concludes his treatise with the inquiry why the devil and his angels are not saved by Christ. His answer is that they did not derive their guilt and sinful estate through a single individual as men do from Adam. Each sinned for himself. For this reason each would have to be saved for himself by a God-angel. In declaring the salvation of fallen angels to be impossible, Anselm closes with the words, "I do not say that this is impossible as though the value of Christ's death were not great enough to be sufficient for all the sins of men and fallen angels, but because of a reason in the unchangeable nature of things which stands in the way of the salvation of the lost angels."1345

It is the merit of Anselm's argument that, while Athanasius and Augustine had laid stress upon the article that through Christ's sufferings atonement was made, Anselm explained the necessity of those sufferings. He also did the most valuable service of setting aside the view, which had been handed down from the Fathers, that Christ's death was a ransom-price paid to Satan. Even Augustine had asserted the rights of the devil. Again, Anselm laid proper stress upon the guilt of sin. He made earnest with it, not as a mistake, but as a violation of law, a derogation from the honor due to God.

The subject of the atonement was not exhausted by the argument of the Cur Deus homo. No one theory can comprehend its whole meaning. Certain biblical features have been made prominent since his day which Anselm did not emphasize. Each creative age has its own statement of theology, and now one aspect and now another aspect of the unchangeable biblical truth is made prominent. The different theories must be put into their proper places as fragments of the full statement of truth. Anselm regarded the atonement from the legal rather than from the moral side of the divine nature. The attribute of justice is given a disproportionate emphasis. Man's relation to God is construed wholly as the relation of a subordinate to a superior. The fatherhood of God has no adequate recognition. The actor in human redemption is God, the sovereign and the judge. Anselm left out John 3:16 and the Parable of the Prodigal Son.1346

Anselm as a mystic.-In Anselm, mysticism was combined with scholasticism, pious devotion with lofty speculation, prayer with logical analysis. His deeply spiritual nature manifests itself in all his writings, but especially in his strictly devotional works, his Meditations and Prayers. 1347 They are in danger of suffering neglect in the attention given to Anselm's theological discussions.

The Schoolman's spiritual reflections abound in glowing utterances from the inner tabernacle of his heart. Now he loses himself in the contemplation of the divine attributes, now he laments over the deadness and waywardness of man. Now he soars aloft in strains of praise and adoration, now he whispers low the pleadings for mercy and pardon. At one moment he surveys the tragedy of the cross or the joys of the redeemed; at another the terrors of the judgment and hopeless estate of the lost. Such a blending of mellow sentiment with high speculations is seldom found. No one of the greater personages of the Middle Ages, except Bernard, excels him in the mystical element; and he often reminds us of Bernard, as when he exclaims, "O good Jesus, how sweet thou art to the heart of him who thinks of thee and loves thee."1348 Or again, when he exclaims in his tenth meditation, "O benign Jesus, condescending Lord, holy Master, sweet in mouth, sweet in heart, sweet in ear, inscrutably, unutterably gentle, self-sacrificing, merciful, wise, mighty, most sweet and lovely"-valde dulcis et suavis. The soaring grandeur of Anselm's thoughts may be likened to the mountains of the land of his birth, and the pure abundance of his spiritual feeling to the brooks and meadows of its valleys. He quotes again and again from Scripture, and its language constitutes the chief vehicle of his thoughts.

In the first meditation, Anselm makes the famous comparison of human life to the passage over a slender bridge, spanning a deep, dark abyss whose bed is full of all kinds of foul and ghastly things. 1349 The bridge is a single foot in width. What anguish would not take hold of one obliged to cross over it, with eyes bandaged and arms tied, so as not to be able even to use a staff to feel one's way! And how greatly would not the anguish be increased, if great birds were flying in the air, intent on swooping down and defeating the purpose of the traveller! And how much more anguish would be added if at every step a tile should fall away from behind him! The ravine is hell, measureless in its depth, horribly dark with black, dismal vapors!1350 And the perilous bridge is the present life. Whosoever lives ill falls into the abyss. The tiles are the single days of a man's existence here below. The birds are malign spirits. We, the travellers, are blinded with ignorance and bound with the iron difficulty of doing well. Shall we not turn our eyes unto the Lord "who is our light and our salvation, of whom shall we be afraid?" Ps. 27:1.

The Prayers are addressed to the Son and Spirit as well as to the Father. To these are added petitions to the Virgin, on whom Anselm bestows the most fulsome titles, and to the saints. In this Anselm was fully the child of his age.

These devotional exercises, the liturgy of Anselm's soul, are a storehouse of pious thought to which due appreciation has not been accorded. The mystical element gives him a higher place than his theological treatises, elevated and important as they are.1351

§ 99. Peter Abaelard.

Literature: Works of Abaelard: ed. first by Duchesne, Paris, 1616. Cousin: Ouvrages inedites d'Abelard, Paris, 1836, containing the Dialectica and Sic et Non; also the Opera omnia, 2 vols. Paris, 1849-1859. Reprod. in Migne, vol. 178.-R. Stolzle: De unitate et trinitate divina, first ed., Freib. im Br., 1891.-Ed. of his Letters by R. Rawlinson, Lond., 1718. Engl. trans. of Letters of Abaelard and Heloise, in Temple Classics. Biographical: Abaelard's Autobiography: Hist. calamitatum, in Migne, 178. 113-180.-Berengar: Apologeticus contra Bernardum, etc., in Migne, 178. 1856-1870.-Bernard's letters as quoted below.-Otto of Freising: De Gestis Frid., 47 sqq.-John of Salisbury: Metalog. and Hist. Pontificalis.-Modern Lives by A. F. Gervaise, Paris, 1728; Cousin, in the Ouvrages, 1836; Wilkins, Gottingen, 1855; Ch. de Remusat, Paris, 1845, 2 vols., new ed., 1855; O. I. de Rochely (Abel. et le rationalisme moderne), Paris 1867; Bonnier (Abel. et S. Bernard), Paris, 1862; Vacandard (P. Abel. et sa lutte avec S. Bernard), Paris, 1881; *S. M. Deutsch (P. Abael, ein kritischer Theologe des 12ten Jahrh., the best exposition of Abaelard's system, Leip., 1883; A. Hausrath, Leip., 1893; Joseph McCabe, London, 1901.-E. Kaiser: P. Abel. Critique, Freib., 1901.-The story of Abaelard and Heloise has been specially told by Mad. Guizot, 2 vols., Paris 1839; Jacobi, Berl., 1850; Wright, New York, 1853; Kahnis, Leip., 1865, etc.-Compayre, Abel. and the Orig. and Early His. of Universities.-R. L. Poole: P. Abailard in Illustrations of Med. Thought, Lond., 1884, pp. 136-167.-Stockl: Phil. des Mittelalters, I. 218-272.-Denifle: D. Sentenzen d. Abael. und Die Bearbeitungen seiner Theologie vor Mitte des 12ten Jahrh. in Archiv fur Lit. und Kirchengesch., etc., 1885, pp. 402-470, 584-624; Hefele, Councils, V. 451-488.-The Histories of Philos. of Ueberweg-Heinze and Ritter - The Lives of St. Bernard by Neander, I. 207-297; II. 1-44; Morison, 254-322; Vacandard, II. 120-181.-The Histories of Doctrine of Schwane, Harnack, Loofs, Fisher, Seeberg, Sheldon.

During the first half of the twelfth century, Peter Abaelard, 1079-1142, was one of the most conspicuous characters of Europe. His fame was derived from the brilliance of his intellect. He differed widely from Anselm. The latter was a constructive theologian; Abaelard, a critic. Anselm was deliberate, Abaelard, impulsive and rash. Anselm preferred seclusion; Abaelard sought publicity. Among teachers exercising the spell of magnetism over their hearers, Abaelard stands in the front rank and probably has not been excelled in France. In some of his theological speculations he was in advance of his age. His personal misfortunes give to his biography a flavor of romance which belongs to no other Schoolman. A man of daring thought and restless disposition, he was unstable in his mental beliefs and morally unreliable. Our main authority for his career is the Story of Misfortunes, Historia calamitatum, written by his own hand, (Migne, 178. 113-180,) in the form of a letter.

The eldest son of a knight, Abaelard was born at the village of Palais or le Pallet, a few miles from Nantes. His original name was Pierre de Palais. Both his parents entered convents. Abaelard had for his first teacher Roscellinus. He listened to William of Champeaux, then at the head of the cathedral school at Paris, and soon began with confidence to refute William's positions.1352 He then established independent schools at Melun and Corbeil. After a period of sickness, spent under his father's roof, he returned to Paris. He again listened to William on rhetoric, but openly announced himself as an antagonist of his views, and taught on Mt. Genevieve, then covered with vineyards. Abaelard represents himself as having drawn almost the last scholar away from the cathedral school to Genevieve. We next find him under Anselm of Laon, who, with his brother Radulf, had made the school of Laon famous. Again Abaelard set himself up against his teacher, describing him as having a wonderful flow of words, but no thoughts. When he lit a fire, he filled the whole house with smoke. 1353 He was like the barren fig tree with the promise of leaves and nothing more. Abaelard started at Laon counter lectures on Ezekiel.

Now the opportunity of his life came and he was called to preside over the cathedral school at Paris. William of Champeaux had retired to St. Victor and then had been made bishop. The years that immediately followed were the most brilliant in Abaelard's career. All the world seemed about to do him homage. Scholars from all parts thronged to hear him. He lectured on philosophy and theology. He was well read in classical and widely read in sacred literature. His dialectic powers were ripe and, where arguments failed, the teacher's imagination and rhetoric came to the rescue. His books were read not only in the schools and convents, but in castles and guildhouses. William of Thierry said1354 they crossed the seas and overleaped the Alps. When he visited towns, the people crowded the streets and strained their necks to catch a glimpse of him. His remarkable influence over men and women must be explained not by his intellectual depth so much as by a certain daring and literary art and brilliance. He was attractive of person, and Bernard may have had this in mind when he says, Abaelard was outwardly a John though he had the heart of a Herod.1355 His statements were clear. He used apt analogies and quoted frequently from Horace, Ovid, and other Latin poets. To these qualities he added a gay cheerfulness which expressed itself in compositions of song and in singing, which made him acceptable to women, as in later years Heloise reminded him.1356

In the midst of this popularity came the fell tragedy of his life, his connection with Heloise, whom Remusat has called "the first of women."1357 This, the leading French woman of the Middle Ages, stands forth invested with a halo as of queenly dignity, while her seducer forfeits by his treatment of her the esteem of all who prefer manly strength and fidelity to gifts of mind, however brilliant.

Heloise was probably the daughter of a canon and had her home in Paris with her uncle, Fulbert, also a canon. When Abaelard came to know her, she was seventeen, attractive in person and richly endowed in mind. Abaelard prevailed upon Fulbert to admit him to his house as Heloise's teacher. Heloise had before been at the convent of Argenteuil. The meetings between pupil and tutor became meetings of lovers. Over open books, as Abaelard wrote, more words of love were passed than of discussion and more kisses than instruction. The matter was whispered about in Paris. Fulbert was in rage. Abaelard removed Heloise to his sister's in Brittany, where she bore a son, called Astralabius.1358 Abaelard expressed readiness to have the nuptial ceremony performed, though in secret, in order to placate Fulbert. Open marriage was eschewed lest he should himself suffer loss to his fame, as he himself distinctly says. 1359

The Story of Misfortunes leaves no doubt that what he was willing to do proceeded from fear and that he was not actuated by any sense of honor toward Heloise or proper view of woman or of marriage. What accord, he wrote, "has study with nurses, writing materials with cradles, books and desks with spinning wheels, reeds and ink with spindles! Who, intent upon sacred and philosophical reflections could endure the squalling of children, the lullabies of nurses and the noisy crowd of men and women! Who would stand the disagreeable and constant dirt of little children!"

Abaelard declared a secret marriage was performed in obedience to the demands of Heloise's relatives. At best it was a mock ceremony, for Heloise persisted in denying she was Abaelard's wife. With mistaken but splendid devotion, she declined to marry him, believing that marriage would interrupt his career. In one of her letters to him she wrote: "If to you, the name of wife seems more proper, to me always was more dear the little word friend, or if you do not deem that name proper, then the name of concubine or harlot, concubina vel scortum. I invoke God as my witness that, if Augustus had wished to give me the rule over the whole world by asking me in marriage, I would rather be your mistress, meretrix, than his empress, imperatrix. Thy passion drew thee to me rather than thy friendship, and the heat of desire rather than love."1360

Abaelard removed Heloise to Argenteuil and she assumed the veil. He visited her in secret and now Fulbert took revenge. Entering into collusion with Abaelard's servant, he fell upon him at night and mutilated him. Thus humiliated, Abaelard entered the convent of St. Denis, 1118,-not from any impulse of piety but from expediency.1361 He became indifferent to Heloise.

New trials fell upon his chequered career-charges of heresy. He was arraigned for Sabellian views on the Trinity at Soissons, 1121, before the papal legate. Roscellinus, his old teacher, opened the accusations. Abaelard complains that two enemies were responsible for the actual trial and its issue, Alberic and Lotulf, teachers at Rheims. He was obliged to commit his book to the flames1362 and to read publicly a copy of the Athanasian Creed.

Again he got himself into difficulty by opposing the current belief, based upon Bede's statement, that Dionysius or St. Denis, the patron of France, was the Dionysius converted by Paul at Athens. The monks of St. Denis would not tolerate him. He fled, retracted his utterance, and with the permission of Suger, the new abbot of St. Denis, settled in a waste tract in Champagne and built an oratory which he called after the third person of the Trinity, the Paraclete. Students again gathered around him, and the original structure of reeds and straw was replaced by a substantial building of stone. But old rivals, as he says, again began to pursue him just as the heretics pursued Athanasius of old, and "certain ecclesiastics"-presumably Norbert, the founder of the Premonstrants, and Bernard of Clairvaux-were stirred up against him. Abaelard, perhaps with not too much self- disparagement, says of himself that, in comparison to them, he seemed to be as an ant before a lion. It was under these circumstances that he received the notice of his election as abbot of the monastery of St. Gildas on the sea, in his native Brittany. He went, declaring that "the envy of the Francians drove him to the West, as the envy of the Romans drove Jerome to the East."

The monks of St. Gildas are portrayed by Abaelard as a band of unmitigated ruffians. They had their wives and children settled upon the convent's domains. They treated their new abbot with contempt and violence, twice, at least, attempting his life. On one occasion it was by drugging the chalice. He complained of the barrenness of the surroundings. Bernard described him as an abbot without discipline. In sheer despair, Abaelard fled and in "striving to escape one sword I threw myself upon another," he said. At this point the autobiography breaks off and we know little of its author till 1136.1363

In the meantime the nuns of Argentueil were driven out of their quarters. In 1127, Abaelard placed Heloise in charge of the Paraclete, and under her management it became prosperous. He had observed a cold silence for a protracted period, but now and again visited the Paraclete and delivered sermons to the nuns. Heloise received the Story of Misfortunes, and, in receiving it, wrote, addressing him as "her lord or rather father, her husband or rather brother, from his handmaid or rather daughter, his consort or rather sister." Her first two letters have scarcely, if ever, been equalled in the annals of correspondence in complete abandonment of heart and glowing expressions of devotion. She appealed to him to send her communications. Had she not offered her very being on the altar for his sake! Had she not obeyed him in everything, and in nothing would she offend him!

Abaelard replied to Heloise as the superior of the nuns of the Paraclete. She was to him nothing more. He preached to her sermons on prayer, asked for the intercession of the nuns on his behalf, and directed that his body be laid away in the Paraclete. He rejoiced that Heloise's connection with himself prevented her from entering into marriage and giving birth to children. She had thereby been forced into a higher life and to be the mother of many spiritual daughters. Heloise plied him with questions about hard passages in the Scriptures and about practical matters of daily living and monastic dress, -a device to secure the continuance of the correspondence. Abaelard replied by giving rules for the nuns which were long and severe. He enjoined upon them, above all else, the study of the Scriptures, and called upon them to imitate Jerome who took up Hebrew late in life. He sent them sermons, seven of which had been delivered in the Paraclete. He proposed that there should be a convent for monks close by the Paraclete. The monks and nuns were to help each other. An abbot was to stand at the head of both institutions. The nuns were to do the monks' washing and cooking, milk the cows, feed the chickens and geese.

In 1137 and again in 1139, we find Abaelard suddenly installed at St. Genevieve and enjoying, for a while, meteoric popularity. John of Salisbury was one of his pupils. How the change was brought about does not fully appear. But Abaelard was not destined to have peace. The final period of his restless career now opens. Bernard was at that time the most imposing religious personality of Europe, Abaelard was its keenest philosophical thinker. The one was the representative of churchmanship and church authority, the other of freedom of inquiry. A clash between these two personalities was at hand. It cannot be regarded as an historical misfortune that these two men met on the open field of controversy and on the floor of ecclesiastical synods. History is most true to herself when she represents men just as they were. She is a poor teacher, when she does not take opportunity to reveal their infirmities as well as their virtues.

Abaelard was as much to blame for bringing on the conflict by his self-assertive manner as Bernard was to blame by unnecessarily trespassing upon Abaelard's territory. William, abbot of St. Thierry, addressed a letter to Bernard and Geoffrey, bishop of Chalons, announcing that Abaelard was again teaching and writing doctrinal novelties. These were not matters of mean import, but concerned the doctrine of the Trinity, the person of Christ, the Holy Spirit, and God's grace. They were even receiving favor in the curia at Rome. William adduced no less than thirteen errors. 1364

The first open sign of antagonism was a letter written by Abaelard, brimming over with self-conceit. On a visit to Heloise at the Paraclete, Bernard had taken exception to the use of the phrase "supersubstantial bread" in the Lord's Prayer, instead of "daily bread" as given by Luke. Abaelard heard of the objection from Heloise, and, as if eager to break a lance with Bernard, wrote to him, showing he was in error. He became sarcastic, pointing out that, at Clairvaux, novelties were being practised which were otherwise unknown to the Church. New hymns were sung and certain intercessory prayers left out as if the Cistercian monks did not stand in need of intercession also.1365

So far as we know, Bernard did not answer this letter. After some delay, he acted upon the request of William of Thierry. He visited Abaelard in Paris and sought to secure from him a promise that he would retract his errors.1366

The difference was brought to open conflict at the synod of Sens, 1141, where Abaelard asked that his case might be presented, and that he might meet Bernard in argument. Arnold of Brescia seems to have been among those present.1367 Bernard was among friends and admirers. Abaelard had few friends, and was from the first looked upon with suspicion. Bernard had come to the synod to lay the whole weight of his influence against Abaelard. He had summoned the bishops as friends of Christ, whose bride called to them out of the thicket of heresies. He wrote to the cardinals and to Innocent II., characterizing Abaelard as a ravenous lion, and a dragon. With Arnold as his armor-bearer at his side, Abaelard stood like another Goliath calling out against the ranks of Israel, while Bernard felt himself a youth in dialectical skill.

At a preliminary meeting with the bishops, Bernard went over the case and it seems to have been decided, at least in an informal way, that Abaelard should be condemned.1368 The next day Bernard publicly presented the charges, but, to the great surprise of all, Abaelard declined to argue his case and appealed it to the pope. Passing by Gilbert of Poictiers, Abaelard is said to have whispered Horace's line,

"Look well to your affairs now that your neighbor's house is burning."

Nam tua res agitur, paries eum proximus ardet.

To Rome the case must go. Abaelard no doubt felt that he had nothing to hope for from the prelates.1369 From Innocent II., whose side he had espoused against the antipope, Anacletus, he might expect some favor and he had friends in the curia. The synod called upon the supreme pontiff to brand Abaelard's heresies with perpetual condemnation-perpetua damnatione - and to punish their defenders. The charges, fourteen in number, concerned the Trinity, the nature of faith, the power and work of Christ, and the nature of sin.1370 Bernard followed up the synodal letter with a communication to the pope, filling forty columns in Migne, and letters to cardinals, which are full of vehement charges against the accused man. Abaelard and Arnold of Brescia were in collusion. Abaelard had joined himself with Arius in ascribing degrees within the Trinity, with Pelagius in putting free will before grace, and with Nestorius in separating the person of Christ. In name and exterior a monk, he was at heart a heretic. He had emerged from Brittany as a tortuous snake from its hole and, as in the case of the hydra, seven heads appeared where before there had been but one. 1371 In his letter to the pope, he declared the only thing Abaelard did not know was the word nescio, "I do not know."

The judgment was swift in coming and crushing when it came. Ten days were sufficient. The fourteen articles were burned by the pope's own hand in front of St. Peter's in the presence of the cardinals. Abaelard himself was declared to be a heretic and the penalty of perpetual silence and confinement was imposed upon him. The unfortunate man had set out for Rome and was hardly well started on his journey, when the sentence reached him. He stopped at Cluny, where he met the most useful friend of his life, Peter the Venerable. At Peter's intercession, Innocent allowed the homeless scholar to remain in Cluny whence the pope himself had gone forth.

Following Peter's counsel, Abaelard again met Bernard face to face. In a defence of his orthodoxy, addressed to Heloise, he affirmed his acceptance of all the articles of the Church from the article on the Trinity to the resurrection of the dead. As it was with Jerome, so no one could write much without being misunderstood.

But his turbulent career was at an end. He was sent by Peter to St. Marcellus near Chalons for his health, and there he died April 21, 1142, sixty-three years old. His last days in Cluny are described by Peter in a letter written to Heloise, full of true Christian sympathy. He called Abaelard a true philosopher of Christ. One so humble in manner he had not seen. He was abstinent in meat and drink. He read continually and prayed fervently. Faithfully he had committed his body and soul to his Lord Redeemer for time and eternity. "So Master Peter finished his days and he who was known in almost the whole world for his great erudition and ability as a teacher died peacefully in Him who said 'Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart,' and he is, as we must believe, gone to Him."

Abaelard's body was carried to the Paraclete and there given rest. Twenty-two years later, Heloise was laid at his side. The inscription placed over the tomb ran, "The Socrates of the Gauls, the great Plato of the Occidentals, our Aristotle, who was greater or equal to him among the logicians! Abaelard was the prince of the world's scholars, varied in talent, subtle and keen, conquering all things by his mental force. And then he became a conqueror indeed, when, entering Cluny, be passed over to the true philosophy of Christ." 1372 At a later time the following inscription was placed over the united dust of these remarkable and unfortunate personages, "Under this marble lie the founder of this convent, P. Abaelard and the first abbess Heloise, once joined by studies, mind, love, forbidden marriage,-infaustis nuptiis, -and penitence and now, as we hope, in eternal felicity."

At the destruction of the Paraclete during the French Revolution, 1792, the marble sarcophagus was removed to Paris and in 1816 it was transferred to the cemetery of Po¨re la Chaise. There it remains, the chief object of interest in that solemn place of the dead, attracting Frenchmen and visitors from distant lands who commemorate, with tears of sympathy and a prayer over the mistakes of mortals, the unfortunate lovers.

§ 100. Abaelard's Teachings and Theology.

Furnished with brilliant talents, Abaelard stands in the front rank of French public teachers. But he was a creature of impulse and offensively conscious of his own gifts and acquirements. He lacked the reverent modesty and equilibrium which become greatness. He was deficient in moral force to lift him above the whips and stings of fortune, or rather the calamities of his own making. He seems to have discerned no goal beyond his own selfish ambition. As Neander has said, if he had been a man of pure moral character, he would have accomplished more than he did in the domain of scholarly study. A man of the highest type could not have written his Story of Misfortunes in the tone that Abaelard wrote. He shows not a sign of repentance towards God for his treatment of Heloise. When he recalls that episode, it is not to find fault with himself, and it is not to do her any reparation.

His readiness to put himself in opposition to his teachers and to speak contemptuously of them and to find the motive for such opposition in envy, indicates also a lack of the higher moral sentiment. It is his own loss of fame and position that he is continually thinking of, and lamenting. Instead of ascribing his misfortunes to his own mistakes and mistemper, he ascribes them to the rivalry and jealousy of others.1373 His one aim in his troubles seems to have been to regain his popularity.

Abaelard's writings are dialectic, ethical, and theological treatises, poems and letters to Heloise, and his autobiography. His chief theological works are a Commentary on the Romans, the Introduction to Theology, and a Christian Theology, the last two being mainly concerned with the Trinity, a colloquy between a philosopher, a Jew, and a Christian and the Sic et Non, Yes and No. In the last work the author puts side by side in one hundred and fifty-eight chapters a collection of quotations from the Fathers which seem to be or really are contradictory. The compiler does not offer a reconciliation. The subjects on which the divergent opinions are collated range from the abstruse problem of the Trinity and the person of Christ to the questions whether Eve alone was seduced or Adam with her, whether Adam was buried on Calvary (the view taken by Ambrose and Jerome) or not (Isidore of Seville), and whether Adam was saved or not. His chief writing on Ethics was the Scito te ipsum, "Know thyself."

In some of his theological conceptions Abaelard was in advance of his age. The new seeds of thought which he let fall have germinated in recent times. His writings show that, in the twelfth century also, the critical sense had a representative.

1. In the conflict over Realism and Nominalism Abaelard occupied an intermediate position. On the one hand he ridiculed the nominalism of Roscellinus, and on the other he controverted the severe realism of William of Champeaux. He taught that the universal is more than a word, vox. It is an affirmation, sermo.1374 That which our thinking finds to be common, he declared to be real, and the forms of things existed in the divine mind before the creation.

2. Of much more interest are Abaelard's views of the ultimate seat of religious authority and of inspiration. Although his statements at times seem to be contradictory, the conclusion is justified that he was an advocate of a certain freedo