# Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought and Learning/Chapter VI

CHAPTER VI.
THE TRIAL OF GILBERT OF LA PORRÉE.
The manifold directions in which the intellectual movement of the twelfth century exerted itself may be judged from the issues to which it led in the case of the Platonists of Chartres and of the Peripatetic of Palais. The same free spirit of enquiry animated both alike, only by Abailard it was not repressed within the proper domain of philosophy; it was applied without fear of the results to the most mysterious, the most jealously guarded, problems of theology. His doctrine was accepted unreservedly by the realist William of Conches; and the fruits of nominalist thought were enjoyed by those whose strict principles should have taught them to suspect the perilous gift. It is evident that the old distinction of the dialectical sects is fading away; and the present chapter will shew us a realist whose mind was permeated by theological meta physics, and yet whose opinions were not secure from the charge of heresy. Nominalism was indeed the immediate product of the intellectual awakening which signalised the eleventh century; but it quickly reacted upon its rival, and both parties engaged with equal vigour in the advocacy of the claims of human reason. It would of course be absurd to imagine that any of these philosophical theorists had the least idea of supplanting the authority of the Scriptures and fathers of the church; it was simply a matter of interpretation. Few critics will pretend that if, for example, Abailard's views threatened directly or indirectly the doctrine of the Trinity as understood by Latin Christendom, they necessarily involved a denial of the doctrine of the Bible: for men had already discovered that the Bible, like the fathers, like Augustin especially, ​contained the germs of all heresies, of course in various degrees, just as truly as it did of the beliefs accepted as orthodox. On this point no controversy arose in the schools; every one agreed that the demands of reason and of authority, both rightly understood, could not but be in harmony. It was only in the heat of polemical detraction that one disputant charged another with contravening the authority of the Bible; and the charge was never in a single instance admitted: the answer was uniformly to explain how the opinions in question had been mistaken or wilfully wrested, and that in this respect conflict was impossible.
Authority, however, it must be remembered, was a very elastic term. It was generally understood as co-extensive with the church-tradition; but the uncritical habit of the medieval mind was also disposed to broaden it so as to include all documents bearing the stamp of antiquity, and we continually find the classical authors cited, even in theological treatises, with the same marks of reverence as the Bible or the fathers. Abailard himself indeed, though he might occasionally fall into the error, was far from countenancing it. The Bible, he said, must be true; if we find difficulties in it, either the text is corrupt or we have failed to grasp its meaning: but as to the fathers, whose authority is much less, we are free to exercise criticism. Besides this, he drew a careful distinction between sacred and secular literature, and applied himself with much elaboration to establish the dignity of the latter as an indispensable auxiliary to theological studies. How, he asked, can we reject its aid when the Bible itself ​makes use of the books of the gentiles? He closely argued the whole question, quoting and rebutting every objection that seemed possible; but the conclusion at which he arrived was far more moderate than that which many masters of his day postulated. The scholars of Chartres, for instance, following their natural tastes rather than any general principles, pursued the study of natural science or of the classics quite regardless of theology: in practice they even travelled beyond the borders of Christianity. Bernard Silvestris too in his Cosmography would only admit theological considerations under protest. Abailard on the contrary was inclined to accept the rule of Plato who excluded the poets from his commonwealth: the study of them, he said, however necessary as a part of education, was not to be indulged in too long. But if the grammatical studies were chiefly valuable as a discipline, far different was his estimate of the higher branches of learning, and he decided that all knowledge was either mediately or immediately useful and therefore to be encouraged. For learning is the vital force which multiplies a man's influence and makes it perennial. Saint Paul has no greater merit than saint Peter, saint Augustin than saint Martin; yet one of each has the larger grace in teaching in proportion to his store of learned knowledge.
Abailard laid a particular stress upon the importance of the ancient philosophy, a department in which men ​specially felt the need of a supplement to the Bible; and although his acquaintance with the former was, he confesses, for the most part limited to the extracts he found in the fathers, he was not afraid to draw forth the great truth that there is a divine element in all noble thoughts, and that society has never been left destitute of divine enlightenment. He held that Plato received a revelation. He accorded to him the peculiar attribute of inspired workmanship, speech by means of mysteries, needing interpretation by means of allegories: for this manner of speaking is most habitual with the philosophers, even as with the prophets, namely that when they approach the secrets of philosophy, they express nothing in common words, but by comparisons or similitudes entice their readers the more cunningly. But for this gift Plato the chief of philosophers we should reckon the chief of fools. The principle was an old one, and Abailard was prepared to justify it on grounds of history and theology. To him revelation was a far-reaching influence, not to be confined to the sacred records of any one nation. The Bible was the revelation of the Jews; philosophy of the Greeks: the two ran on parallel lines until they were embraced, and absorbed, and united in Christianity. Even the cardinal doctrine of the being of God divine inspiration was pleased to unfold both to the Jews by the prophets and to the gentiles by the philosophers, in order that by it, the very perfection of the supreme good, each people might be invited to the worship of one God.
Abailard's view is more or less that of the Alexandrine ​Platonisers in the early ages of the church: to his own generation, however, there was something new, striking, even alarming, in the manner in which he stated it. He seemed to efface the distinction between faith and unfaith, and to treat Christian doctrine almost as a species of philosophy. Yet, even had he done so, he would only have been formulating a proposition which after all was part of the tacit, unacknowledged creed of students of philosophy. Among them the dignity of Plato the Theologian was certainly not allowed to suffer by comparison with the Bible. It was not merely that he furnished (by whatever crooked process of evolution) the materials for the accredited system of metaphysics: the accident that the middle ages as yet knew him only through the Timaeus, made him also specially the authority in cosmology and theosophy. The trinity that was discovered there took the place for speculative purposes of the Trinity of the Christian church. The Father and the Son became the ideal unities of Power and Wisdom, and there was a strong temptation to identify the Holy Ghost with the universal Soul. Abailard indeed never went this length, although he was charged with the identification at the council of Sens: for himself, he consistently distinguished the Third Person as Goodness or Love. But he liked to illustrate the prime doctrine by every possible analogy and was specially fond ​of dwelling upon the adumbrations of Christian truth which he found in Plato. Plato, he says, conceived of God as of an artificer who planned and ordered everything before he made it: in this wise he considers the pattern-forms, which he calls the ideas, in the divine mind; and these afterwards Providence, as after the fashion of a consummate workman, carried into effect. Such a suggestion (Abailard does not mean it as an explanation, for the truth, he avers, surpasses human understanding) may help to make us guess at the relation between the Father and the Son, and that of the Holy Spirit to both. In the same way our theologian took the doctrine of the universal Soul, the anima mundi, as a convincing proof of his favourite position that intimations of the divirie mysteries were vouchsafed to the Greek philosophers. He seeks to shew that it can be reconciled with the Christian faith in the holy Spirit; but he does not presume to identify the two ideas. The doctrine by itself, he says, is a dark saying veiled in a figure; taken literally it would be the height of absurdity: Christianity, he seems to infer, has supplied the means of solving the enigma and bringing it into harmony with the perfect truth. Abailard's prudence was however not followed by every one; and William of Conches, the uncompromising Platonist, who, as we have seen, appears to have borrowed a good deal from a somewhat perfunctory study of Abailard, decided without hesitation that the Holy Ghost and the universal Soul were convertible terms, ​and was only induced to withdraw the opinion by a threat and a reminder of Abailard's fate.
Thus, with whatever limitations and reserves on the part of professed theologians, there was a general tendency among scholars to take the motive of their theology from philosophy. Christianity was put into a Neo-Platonic setting; and if the result was in some ways fantastic, it was not the less a distinct gain, in an age when everything tended towards a coarse materialism, to have a philosophy which should bring into relief those spiritual and ideal elements of Christianity which have in all times been in danger of suppression under the weight of an organised dogmatic system. It was that characteristic of the Creator so emphatically seized in the Timaeus, namely his essential goodness, which was adopted as paramount by the Platonists of the twelfth century, as it had been by John Scotus in the ninth. The thought passed into current theology and could not fail of influence as a counterweight to those dark theories of the divine government which lingered on, partly believed, never entirely disowned, from the predestinarianism of Augustin. Augustin has indeed ​expressed this principle of goodness in the universe, often with persuasive force, sometimes in passages of exquisite beauty; but at the same time this is too often obscured by his other doctrine which laid so heavy a stress upon the reign of sin, and it cannot be doubtful with which of the two tendencies his influence is historically associated.
Probably had not Abailard held so unique a position as a teacher, had he not exulted in publicity, his Platonic theology, which was singular only in its joyful recognition of a world of divine teaching of old outside the borders of Judaism, would never have excited suspicion: more intrepid views than his were promulgated without risk by a multitude of less conspicuous masters; Platonism was in fact the vogue of the day. But, the opposition once aroused, the church had to face a larger problem; she had to decide whether she would hold fast to the old moorings, or whether she could trust herself to sail at large, conscious of her intrinsic strength and fearless of any harm from without. The struggle between religion and science, or if we will, between authority and reason, broke out anew; and it seemed as though it were the object of the established powers to drive all professors of secular learning into the fellowship of those obscure and obstinate heretics who had now for a century or more been spreading discord among the churches of Christendom. In truth the principles of the heretics stood nearer to those of the guardians of catholic Christianity, than did the philosophy of the schools: they had a tradition, although it was not catholic, in which it was an obligation to place implicit, unreasoning faith. Yet it may be fairly argued that the church would have best consulted her own interests, had she conceded the scant latitude asked by the philosophers and allowed their invigorating force to turn the history of her progress into a new life.
The men whose opinions she proscribed were just those ​whose activity was consistently devoted to the correction of the moral disorders from which she suffered. Roscelin, Abailard, William of Conches are unsparing in their exposure of abuses in the state of the clergy which it was equally the desire of every earnest member of the order to eradicate. If Abailard's life be thought to be vitiated by a single fault, his colleagues are invariably blameless. The learned clergy are the exemplars of the age; the unlettered are its reproof. It was owing to the latter, to their degradation in life because in mind, that the church stood in need of repeated, periodical revivals of religious discipline. The stimulus of learning was the least intermittent and therefore the most trustworthy motive for moral advancement: but instead of fostering the seed of promise, the husbandmen of the church rooted it up. Yet, be it observed, the good service and high rectitude of the philosophers were obvious and admitted: the errors were only suspected or guessed at. A complete examination was seldom attempted, never successfully carried out. Whereas the custom of the church, as Abailard notes, had ruled that in such cases argument not force should be the constraining engine, the proceedings of their trials generally left it open to the accused to declare that his opinions had been misconstrued, that the quotations from his writings had been garbled . No council sat in judgement upon them that received, even among the most loyal catholics, unanimous assent: the sentence was the subject of apology not of congratulation.
It is in the youth of an intellectual movement that antagonisms such as those to which we refer are sure to arise. The conservative instincts of a corporation, especially of a religious corporation, and most of all when that corporation has the splendid and sacred traditions of the catholic church, are immediately excited at the first whisper of possible competition; and not only so, or at least not ​so outwardly: it resents the bare idea that its position can be seriously threatened, and it opposes the new tendency because it is new. The text which we hear repeated incessantly through these disputes is that in which the apostle warns Timothy against profanas vocum novitates. The novelty is the profanity. In no example is this consideration plainer than in that of William of Conches, whose ready yielding to the pressure of orthodox objections has been commented upon in a previous chapter. He withdraws, he condemns as blasphemous, opinions which he admits are capable of defence, solely because their terms are not to be found in the Bible. It is evidently a mere measure of prudence. He does not profess to abate a jot of his belief in the impugned statements: he suppresses the written record of them, and all parties are satisfied.
Side by side with this hardly masked fear of novelty operated another instinct resting, like the first, upon a slavish acceptance of the words of Scripture. The line of demarcation which Christians have ever been disposed to draw between the word of God and the word of man, so as to distinguish between the absolute and the relative authority with which they speak, was insensibly confused with an altogether different division, that namely between the church and the world, which in essence is determined (in however varying forms) by the presence or absence of a high principle in life. Sacred and secular in this disastrous mode of thought were treated as the practical equivalents of 'good' and 'bad.' By the time with which we are concerned the phrases had indeed lost something of their significance. They consorted easily with the secure indolence of monasticism, and when such a man as saint Bernard ventured into the intellectual arena, they were almost the only weapons at his disposal: but when educated people (the distinction is Gilbert of La Porrée's) took up the gauntlet, it was usually now as the champions of the old against the new.
It is needless to point out the disadvantages to the ​attacked party of such terms of combat. Prepossessed with a blind reliance on their elders as by far the majority of medieval churchmen were (and it was the church which in all cases claimed the power of deciding questions which might more strictly belong to the cognisance of philosophy), the result was nearly certain before the argument began. At the same time, as we have said, it by no means followed that the verdict of a council commanded general acceptance: private sentiments of prejudice or favour, a reluctance to assume nice points as irrevocably fixed, concerning which even the fathers were supposed to have allowed some latitude, and which few persons even pretended to understand,—all these motives, apart from the existence of personal attachment to the opinions condemned, cooperated to make such proceedings matters for criticism, a source of uneasiness to the faithful and a rock of offence to the hardier intellects among them. The trial of Gilbert of La Porrée furnishes a striking illustration of this, and it is the more deserving of close study since in it we have the rare advantage of three contemporary witnesses, of whom two speak to what they actually saw and all discourse at length on the general bearings of the transaction.
Gilbert of La Porrée, bishop of Poitiers, has already come before our notice as the most distinguished disciple of Bernard of Chartres; a man, it was considered, of universal learning, who in the true spirit of his school gathered together every detail of accessible knowledge to illustrate and perfect his work. But unlike Bernard his principal interest lay in applying his acquirements to the investigation of theological problems; with him religion was the first thing. His theological activity is represented by a weighty and extensive Commentary on the Books on the Trinity, by Boëthius, which were endued ​with the unbounded authority that belonged to one who was ranked with Cicero among the chief of Latin philosophers. Gilbert's general mode of approaching his subject suggests to a great extent, consciously or unconsciously, that of John Scotus. He seeks to unite theology and philosophy, and he arrives at a similar result. Although he has not the affirmative and negative antithesis which forms so characteristic an element in the Scot's system, he is not the less precise in excluding the nature of God from the domain of human enquiry. God is to him, on the one hand, the supreme abstraction, of which we can predicate nothing; on the other, he is the fulness of all being, which sums up and unites that which in the universe exists only in division and variety. The dominant idea, however, in Gilbert's mind is plainly the former. He undertook to prove, just as Abailard had done, that the highest truths of theology stand apart from and above the comprehension of our understanding, can only be hinted at by analogies and figures of speech. Yet in fact he started from a precisely opposite principle to Abailard's, since he held that in theology faith precedes reason, reason ​is impotent of itself to teach it us. Nevertheless Gilbert's exposition of his views is contained in one of the subtlest and most elaborate contributions to theological metaphysics that the middle ages have as yet given forth; and his opinions and Abailard's produced a similar effect upon their less inquisitive contemporaries. They appeared to render unmeaning that phraseology concerning divine things which had taken so deep a root in the pious consciousness of Christendom: this language, it would be inferred, could be possessed of but a partial and temporary truth, which to ordinary minds might seem not far removed from falsehood.
Gilbert's real difficulty, however, concerned the Trinity. The being of God, he held, is absolute: we can predicate nothing of it; not even substance, as we ordinarily understand the term, for substance is what it is by virtue of its properties and accidents, and God has no properties and accidents: he is simple being. It is incorrect therefore to say that his substance, divinity, is God; we can only speak of the substance by virtue of which he is God. It is evident that this thesis of an absolute Unity logically carried out, is of such a nature as to exclude the existence within it of a Trinity. The three Persons must be something external and non-essential: in the substance by which they are God, in nature, they are one; but as regards the substance or form which they are, they are three in number, three in genus, three distinct and individual beings; the three Persons, as such, could not be said to be one God. Gilbert thus hardly escaped the paradox of tritheism: and yet it is impossible to doubt that the heresy was one of expression, not of fact. The contradictions that make his study so con​fusing are due to the presence in the writer's mind of an idea of a supreme Unity surpassing human thought or speech, a Unity which forbade the coëxistence of multiplicity. He could only apply the analogy of his own realistic philosophy and infer, or lead his readers to infer, that as humanity was a single essence by participation in which individual men were said to exist, so did the three Persons subsist, as individuals, by participation in the one absolute God.
On whichever side of Gilbert's theology we dwell, however innocent the one, however obscure the other, we cannot wonder that it startled many of his more timid or pious hearers, accustomed as they were to the definition and classification of the divine attributes authorised in the formularies of the church.The bishop appears to have been drawn into a discussion with Arnald, one of his archdeacons, and then into a formal exposition of his views before the assembled clergy of his diocese. It is admitted byJohn of Salisbury, – and the former part of the statement will not be denied by anyone who has read the commentary on Boëthius, – that Gilbert was obscure to beginners but all the more compendious and solid to advanced scholars. To the synod the doctrine was new, and therefore dangerous; andthe alarmed archdeacons hastened to report their fears, the bishop to defend his orthodoxy, to the pope Eugenius the Third. The latter was at Siena, about to visit France, and gave them a promise that he would submit the points in dispute to an ample examination on his arrival in that countrybecause by reason of the learned men there resident, he would be the better enabled to make the enquiry than in Italy. In the meanwhile the complainants secured a more formidable champion in the person of Bernard of Clairvaux. An unprejudiced contemporary, himself certainly no heretic, has passed a remarkable judgement upon the saint in connexion with his action in this affair. The aforesaid abbat, says the biographer of Frederick Barbarossa, bishopOtto of Freising, was from the fervour of his Christian
k Gaufr. Claraevall. epist. ad Henr., ii. Bern. opp. 2. 1319 D. l Hist. pontif. xii. p. 526. m Otto de gest. Frid. i. 46, Pertz 20. 376; Gautr. ep., l. c. n Otto, l. c. o ibid., cap. 47 p. 376.
A.D. 1146. ​religion as jealous as, from his habitual meekness, he was in some measure credulous; so that he held in abhorrence those who trusted in the wisdom of this world and were too much attached to human reasonings, and if anything alien from the Christian faith were said to him in reference to them, he readily gave ear to it. In other words Bernard's constitutional distrust of the unaided human intellect conspired with a jealousy of those who had the power of turning it to account, to incline him to believe any talk discreditable to their Christian reputation.
Perhaps the verdict of history has hardly acquiesced in so injurious a view of his conduct: perhaps it was the very single-mindedness of his trust in spiritual things that made him recoil from any attempt to introduce into that sphere the reasons and questions of the world. They were tainted by their source, and to bring them into alliance with the spiritual was to pollute the faith and, as it were, to seek to unite Christ and Belial. But had Bernard's aim been realised, there could have been no more room for the rational development of the human mind, unless, were it possible, as an independent existence having no contact with its spiritual functions. Happily there was no excuse for the forcing into being of a premature secularism, a tendency as destructive of the intellectual powers as Bernard's spiritual absolutism. For he had no metaphysical theory of the unknowableness of the highest truths: on the contrary, they were the most certain, the only certain, knowledge. He had no wish to draw distinctions between the province of the spiritual and the intellectual, and leave the latter free within its own domain: he simply demanded its suppression; and against this blind claim on behalf of authority the better feeling of the age rebelled.
Bishop Otto illustrates Bernard's nervous susceptibility to the danger of human speculation by the instance of his treatment of Abailard: thus he explains the motive that prompted the trial of Gilbert of La Porrée. He sets the two cases in skilful and artistic juxtaposition. ​Yet he has certainly little sympathy with the philosopher whose personality has retained so unique an attraction for the modern world. To him Abailard appears, as he appears to a cynical critic of our own day, as little more than a rhetorician. He distrusts his method and his self-confident temper: he cannot forgive him for his scorn of his teachers, and is persuaded that he engaged in dialectical disputes for the mere pastime of the thing. Yet even here Otto's judgement goes against his private aversion, and he is constrained to quote the story of Abailard's trial and condemnation as a proof of saint Bernard's credulity and morbid dislike of learned men. In fact the attitude of jealousy, of suspicion, produced in men's minds by Abailard's independent and arrogant bearing, is not the least justification of the treatment to which he was subjected. But these circumstances were wanting in the affair of Gilbert of La Porrée: the case, says Otto, was not the same, nor the matter kindred. For Gilbert had from youth submitted himself to the teaching of great men, and trusted in their weight rather than in his own powers. He was on all accounts a serious and humble enquirer, and a man whose personal character stood as high as his reputation for learning. So undisputed indeed was his integrity that to attack him on points of faith might seem a hopeless undertaking. His archdeacons therefore were fain to resort to Clairvaux and rely on the authority and weight of abbat Bernard to accomplish Gilbert's overthrow as successfully as the same agency had been formerly employed against Abailard.
The calm narrative of the subsequent proceedings which Otto attempts has not been universally accepted as history. It has been held to be invalidated not only by the fact that the writer was at the time absent on the luckless enterprise of the second crusade, but also by a circumstance mentioned by his continuator Ragewin, namely that the bishop was haunted on his deathbed by a fear lest he should have said anything in favour of the ​opinion of master Gilbert that might offend any one; and Otto's story certainly gives a very different presentment of the facts from that which we owe to the loyal industry of Bernard's secretary, Geoffrey of Auxerre, in after years himself abbat of Clairvaux. Geoffrey's account is contained in a set polemic against what he considered Gilbert's errors, and also in a letter which he addressed more than thirty years later to Henry, cardinal bishop of Albano, and the date of which by itself deprives it of a good deal of its value. The writer in both documents may be said to hold the brief for the prosecution: he does himself harm by the heat and passion of his language; and his candour has been a frequent subject of controversy in modern times as much among the allies of saint Bernard as among his detractors. At length the publication of John of Salisbury's narrative in his Historia Pontificalis, – the work, be it remembered, of a man of indisputable orthodoxy, a friend of both parties in the suit, and an eyewitness of its final stage, – has conclusively established the general correctness of Otto's report and goes far to justify the criticism, made by an older scholar long before this confirmation could be appealed to, that Geoffrey tells so many falsehoods in so short a compass, that he must be judged entirely undeserving of credence.
A council was summoned to examine Gilbert's heresy at Auxerre; it met at Paris in 1147. In his previous audience with the pope, the accused prelate had confidently denied the charges laid against him, and contradicted, or ​perplexed by fine-drawn interpretations (this is the account of an enemy), the utterances to which he had publicly committed himself at Poitiers. At Paris however denial was not sufficient. Adam of the Petit Pont, a practised logician who was specially noted for the petty jealousy of his temper, and Hugh of Champfleury, afterwards chancellor to the king of France and bishop of
Soissons, came forward to declare the accuracy of the indictment against Gilbert, The latter on his side called witnesses, once his scholars, now fellow-bishops. He was confident in his orthodoxy, and overpowered the council by the subtilty of his distinctions. The judges demanded evidence which he could not traverse, his own book on Boëthius; but it was not to be found. Gilbert had it not with him, and his disciples thought it safer not to surrender it to the uncertain scrutiny of the council. Some extracts were however obtained, and Gilbert was confronted with them; but to no purpose. The pope declared himself baffled. Gilbert's explanations were so unsatisfactory, so violent, Geoffrey says, that it was deemed advisable to adjourn the council to a fresh meeting to be held at Rheims in the following year. Meanwhile Gottschalk, abbat of Saint Éloy, was entrusted with the extracts, which he was to furnish with annotations for future use; and Gilbert was enjoined to attend on the occasion named with his Commentary for examination.
At Rheims Bernard's friends assembled in greater force. Robert of Melun, Peter the Lombard, and other leaders of the schools of the day were there as advocates for the prosecution. But opinion was as much divided in respect of their motives as of the subject-matter of the charge. ​John of Salisbury, who was present through the whole proceedings, leaves it an open question whether the offence lay in a substantial disagreement with 'the rules' or in the mere appearance of such a disagreement, arising from the unusual form of the words Gilbert employed: for, he remarks, it is certain that a good many things are now handled by scholars in public which when he put them forward were reckoned as profane novelties. John's criticism of the character of the prosecution betrays well enough the general estimate of it among cultivated men outside the immediate circle of partisans. He doubts whether Gilbert's accusers were moved by the zeal of faith, or by emulation of a more illustrious and deserving name, or by a desire to get favour with the abbat, whose authority was then supreme. As to abbat Bernard himself, he adds, there are several opinions, some thinking one way and some another, in reference to his having acted with such vigour against men of so great renown in letters as Peter Abailard and the aforesaid Gilbert, as to procure the condemnation of the one, to wit, Peter, and to use all his power to condemn the other. How could a man of so singular a holiness have broken out into such intemperance as his conduct would seem to imply? We cannot think of jealousy as the moving principle here; Bernard must have been actuated by a righteous zeal. But as to the object of his assault, John could as little be persuaded that Gilbert had really committed himself to views from which Bernard was bound to dissent: for – the reason is curious and characteristic – Gilbert was a man of the clearest intellect, and of the widest reading; he had spent some sixty years in study and the exercise of literature, and was so ripe in liberal culture as to be surpassed by no one, rather it was believed that in all things he excelled all men.
There was thus a presumption in Gilbert's favour possibly not less powerful than the evidence against him. ​ Even Geoffrey has to confess that though few were for the doctrine, very many were for the man, and did all they could to excuse and extenuate even opinions which they did not hold. Bernard's party accordingly judged it prudent to organise their attack and to prepare for possible contingencies by a rehearsal, as it were, of the trial. At this secret meeting were present the archbishops Theobald of Canterbury, Geoffrey of Bordeaux, and Henry of York, the influential abbat Suger of Saint Denis, and two future English primates, Thomas Becket and Roger of York. The fact transpired when the council met, and with it another fact not less unfavourable to the confederates, namely that the issue had broadened from a case as between Gilbert and the catholic church, to one as between the pope and the cardinals on the one side and the prelates of France and England on the other. There was a risk of a schism. In effect it was not Gilbert, but the influence of Bernard himself, that was at trial; and it was openly rumoured that the council was arranged with the object of forcing the apostolic see to follow Bernard under a threat of withdrawing from the Roman communion. All the cardinals but one united in resisting him: these, they said, were the arts by which he had assaulted Abailard, and they would have nothing to do with them. Bernard sought to win over the pope, for he was a man, says John, mighty in work and speech before God, as it is believed, and as is well-known, before men: but although usually successful, he was impeded in the present instance by the opposing unanimity of the cardinals.
Gilbert therefore approached the struggle with confidence. He brought not only the book on which he claimed to be judged, but his clerks followed with great tomes, presumably of the fathers, noted to support his arguments. He had evidently an advantage over his enemies who had only a sheet of selected extracts to go upon; and Geoffrey was reduced to fetching as many ​books as he could from the church-library in order to persuade the council that his authorities were a match for the bishop’s. The device, he thought, was an effective one; but John of Salisbury assures us that the feeling of the council was all on Gilbert’s side, and that the impression made by the wide reading he shewed was carried home by the eloquence of his language; for he had a grave dignity both in voice and gesture. Every circumstance lent force to the earnestness with which he repudiated opinions which had been wrung and wrested out of his book. He declared that, he was not to be called upon to agree with other men's works but with his own. . . He was not a heretic nor would be, but was and had ever been ready to acquiesce in the truth and to follow apostolical doctrine: for it is not ignorance of the truth that makes the heretic, but a puffing up of the mind that breeds contumacy and breaks out into the presumption of strife and schism. The fourfold indictment which had been drawn up he entirely disclaimed: a supplemental count which charged him with limiting the applicability of baptism, roused him to indignation; that document, he exclaimed, I anathematise with him who wrote it, and all the heresies therein recited.
Gilbert’s protest appeared to saint Bernard and his friends in the light of a mean piece of shuffling; but the cardinals were satisfied that he had made out his innocence, and demanded the destruction of the bill setting forth the minor charges. The pope gave the order, which was at once carried out by a subdeacon of the curia. Then followed a lively scene of disorder among the crowd of laity present, who were unable to follow the proceedings of the council and supposed that Gilbert was already condemned; and the pope had to explain to them in French that it was not done to the injury of Gilbert, for that it was not his book, whereas he was found catholic in all respects and agreeable to the apostolical doctrine. The four principal accusations however still remained, and Gilbert’s energetic repudiation of them could not exclude ​the possibility that the corpus delicti, his Commentary on Boëthius, itself, really contained doctrines as objectionable as they; and it was not intended to give him the benefit of a flaw in the indictment. His opponents accordingly addressed their skill to the Commentary; but here they were still more obviously outmatched, for, however creditably they might argue on detached points for which patristic proofs and disproofs had been previously prepared for them, no one present was sufficiently qualified by his learning to criticise the whole book in detail. The pope proposed that it should be handed to him that he might erase anything that might require erasure; but Gilbert repeated that his orthodoxy was assured and that it was his own duty to alter whatever was amiss in the book, a declaration received with loud applause by the cardinals, who thought that now at last their work was nearly over.
But Bernard had one more shaft in his quiver. He, or his satellite Geoffrey of Auxerre, had constructed a set of four formulas corresponding to and correcting the four heresies enumerated in the original indictment. This symbol was to be a test of Gilbert's obedience. But the fact that Gilbert had throughout unswervingly declared his adhesion to the catholic faith combined with the cardinals' long smouldering jealousy of Bernard's influence to make its production the signal for an angry outcry. The document was at length admitted, as it were on sufferance, but not so as to bind the council to its terms: nor can we tell with certainty how far Gilbert accepted it. John of Salisbury says, he was admonished ​that if there was anything in his book repugnant to the formulas, he should emend it in conformity with them, and that submitting to this injunction he was acquitted. Otto of Freising on the other hand relates that owing to the confusion it was impossible to arrive at any decision on the last three points, it being doubtful whether there was any actual divergence of opinion among the parties. The pope however gave his ruling on the first head: he directed that no reasoning in theology should make a division between nature and person, and that the essence of God should be predicated not in the sense of the ablative case only, but also of the nominative. The humour which modern writers have discerned in the closing phrase, an anti-climax not unknown in the proceedings of ecclesiastical councils, did not disturb the gravity of the proceedings. The bishop reverently received the sentence; he took back his archdeacons into favour, and returned with his order untouched and honour unabated to his own diocese.
It is right to add that Bernard and his followers did not own themselves beaten. The former says that Gilbert expressly recanted, and Geoffrey solemnly relates how, when judgement was given, the culprit in fear and trembling, in the hearing of all, renounced with his own mouth those things which he had professed, refuted them severally, and promised for the future not to write or say or even think anything of the sort again. But a curious fact is, that instead of Gilbert's book having been suppressed, it was the formal indictment against him that suffered this fate. The minor charges had been destroyed in public session of the council, and it was perhaps deemed discreet to make away with the rest. At least John of Salisbury states positively that although he remembered hearing the indictment read, he could never find it either ​in the papal register or in the Acts of the council, and only lit upon it at last in that work of Geoffrey's, which he temperately describes as written in an elegant style but vitiated by the singular bitterness of its tone. He proceeds to comment, with the same surprise as he expressed at the beginning of his narrative, upon the manner in which Bernard continued to attack Gilbert even after the latter's absolution by the council. Yet Bernard once made overtures to him,—and John, the friend of both, was the intermediary,—to hold a friendly discussion on certain questions raised by the writings of saint Hilary. The bishop declined with grave asperity: it was sufficient that they had contended thus far, and if the abbat desired a full understanding of Hilary, he must first get better instructed in liberal learning and other matters pertaining to the discussion: for, explains Salisbury, Bernard, however great as a preacher, knew little of secular letters, wherein, as it is believed, the bishop was surpassed, by no one of our time.
Still the council had really decided nothing. Whether Bernard, says Otto, was deceived by human infirmity or Gilbert outwitted the council, it is not our place to enquire or judge. The talk was, says John of Salisbury, that the bishop was more adroit than candid. But John is loyal to his old master: because, he says, he could not be understood by his opponents, they maintained that he hid his perfidy in guile and obscure words. Nor did Gilbert profess himself satisfied with the result. He wrote a new preface to his Commentary, to prove its substantial harmony with the confession of faith which Bernard had put before the council. It was impossible, he declared, to write anything that should not be open to misunderstanding. Is the Bible heretical because Arius and Sabellius read their heresies in it? Was Gilbert to supply his readers with brains? There is no doubt that the apologist ​touches the spring of the whole antagonism. It was not really a controversy between faith and error, but between ignorance and learning; and in this way we can understand how it was that the character and position of Gilbert, and nearly to the same extent of Abailard, remained unaffected by the obloquy to which they were exposed. The affair in fact interested only a very few outside the circle of Bernard's intimates. To these denunciation was a point of party honour, but to the rest of the world the proceedings or the results of the councils appear either unknown or else so questionable as to be practically put out of account. The latter alternative, however, hardly accords with the slender mental attainments of the monastic chroniclers who may be taken as reflecting the opinions of the average of churchmen: their notices persuade us that they were simply ignorant that the great names they commemorate had ever encountered, or been overwhelmed by, the storm of religious hatred.
A few specimens will justify this statement. Their selection makes no pretence to an elaborate or critical examination, for all we seek is the popular report that won currency with reference to Abailard and Gilbert. It was usual when the news arrived of a famous man's death to enter it in what we may call the day-book of the monastery, and the epithet attached to the name would be that given to it by common rumour. In process of time these jottings would be dressed by a more ambitious member of the fraternity who would add details and specifications derived from other chronicles which circulated in the religious world of his day: so that though the work itself might be a century or more later than some of the events it relates, its evidence would still be carried back, through its secondary sources and through the acceptance which these latter had obtained, to that popular version of the original facts which we wish to discover.
The summary perhaps most often repeated of Abailard's career is that which appears in the Chronologia of Robert, monk of Saint Marianus at Auxerre, who died in ​1212, in a Chronicle of Saint Martin at Tours of slightly later date, and in other compilations. It occurs under the date of the council of Sens, assembled, says the record, against Peter Abailard; but instead of even suggesting what the acts of the council were, it at once turns to a panegyric of the man: he was of intellect most subtil, and a marvellous philosopher; who founded a religious house in the land of Troyes, famous as the abbey of the Paraclete. In the same way another chronicle, actually a chronicle of Sens itself, commemorates Abailard's death as that not of a convicted heretic but as of one of the canons of the church of Sens, who established convents of nuns, particularly the abbey of the Paraclete, where he is buried with his wife. The multiplication of Abailard's good deeds shews how his local fame had grown with years: but that it was his religious work that survived, and the scandal of his opinions that was forgotten, is a fair proof of the relative notoriety of the two.
Abailard's heresy, however, is not always ignored. An early chronicler, the English monk, William Godell, who wrote about the year 1173, enters into some detail on the subject; and his evidence is the more instructive since he is particularly well informed about the affairs of the diocese of Sens, in which he is supposed to have lived. There flourished also, he says, in this same time (he has just commemorated saint Bernard) master Peter Abaelard, a man of very subtil intellect, and a great writer and teacher. Howbeit he was made by some the object of blame, and especially by the aforesaid abbat Bernard: for which ​cause a council was assembled, whereat he was present, and many things which were accused against him he steadily repelled, and very many he convincingly proved not to be his, which his opponents averred were his and said by him; yea, and at length he repudiated all heresy, and confessed and declared that he would be the son of the catholic church, and thereafter in the peace of brotherhood finished his life. He proceeds to relate the foundation of the Paraclete in the same terms as those upon which we have commented in Robert of Auxerre. The testimony, it may doubtless be objected, is that of a partisan, although written a generation after the events to which it refers: but it is at least remarkable that, except among his own biographers, Bernard has to wait a good half-century more before his case is admitted into history-books. The Cistercian Helinand, who died in 1227, is apparently the first to do this, in respect both to Abailard and to Gilbert of La Porrée; and those who follow him, Alberic of Trois Fontaines (as he is commonly known), towards the middle of the century, Vincent of Beauvais, like Helinand a Cistercian, and others, all expressly rely upon ​ his statement as an authority, whether singly or in combination with the biography of Geoffrey of Clairvaux and the Epistles of Bernard himself: they do not profess to write independently.
To return, however, to the more independent annalists, we find a favourite combination, the very incongruity of
which makes no small part of its significance, which
grouped together the name of Abailard with that of Hugh
of Saint Victor, the master of sacred learning who held a place in the respect of the middle ages, with saint Anselm and saint Bernard, as an immediate successor of the fathers. The juxtaposition would be inexplicable but on the assumption to which we have been already led, namely that piety was an essential ingredient in the popular idea of Abailard. Even more extraordinary is a notice in the Tours chronicle to which reference has been made above, which associates in the same sentence, as the representative churchmen of the age, Bernard of Clairvaux and Gilbert of La Porree. With reference indeed to Gilbert it is not necessary to collect testimony. On the one hand, he had not the European fame of Abailard; on the other. it is agreed that, whatever the issue of the council of Rheims, he left it acquitted or absolved, and lived the rest of his days in honour. But there is one circumstance which we can hardly be wrong in connecting with that council of 1148, and which throws a curious light upon the feelings it should seem to have excited. The notice in the History of the Pontiffs and Counts of Angoulême, a work which dates from a very few years later, may be quoted without comment. On the 15th of June, 1149, the clergy of the city chose for their bishop a certain Hugh of La Rochefoucauld, a man well-trained in the liberal arts, who had attended master Gilbert in Gaul and most of all followed him in theology. That, clearly, was his title to election.
If the religious character of Abailard and Gilbert ​remained untouched by the suspicion of heresy, as little did their influence as teachers suffer on that account. In the letters calling upon the pope to ratify the sentence of the council of Sens, the argument which Bernard pressed as of prime urgency was that Abailard's teaching was being diffused over the whole world by a large and enthusiastic body of disciples: and if he had no one legitimate successor, at least his opinions were thought worthy of a detailed refutation nearly forty years after his death by Walter of Saint Victor, a man who presented in his day, though with less authority, the same attitude of defiant hostility to secular learning as saint Bernard had done before him. Nearly forty years too after the trial of Gilbert of La Porrée the number of his disciples was so considerable as to draw the vehement Geoffrey, now abbat of Clairvaux, once more into the fray, to denounce and to vituperate. The decision of the council of Rheims, he still found, was powerless to restrain the ardour of his disciples: in spite of it, Bernard himself had complained, the Commentary on Boëthius continued to be read and transcribed. It was repeatedly averred by writers of the Cistercian following, that the disciples of Abailard and Gilbert had used their trials as a handle for attacking Bernard and the order at large. But only fanatics could speak of either as having founded sects. Neither sought to remove himself out of the comity of catholic Christendom, nor, as we have seen, did the learned or popular opinion of their day so remove them. By the world at large they were still honoured as philosophers and divines.
It is thus too that John of Salisbury, the pupil of both, regards them. In his historical work he has occasion to relate the proceedings against Gilbert; but in all his other writings he appears simply unconscious that that trial ​of which he had been an eyewitness ever took place. In the same way he admires Abailard as the master from whom he received his first lessons in dialectic. He criticises his philosophical system, but of anything further he is silent. Nor is his reticence in any degree attributable to delicacy; it is simply that John will not go out of his way to take notice of old wives' fables. To this writer, who has supplied so large a part of the materials for the last three chapters, we now turn. John of Salisbury reflects something of all the characteristics of the school of Chartres of which Gilbert of La Porrée was the most famous product, but his training is wider than the school itself. Before he went there he had caught the dialectical enthusiasm from Abailard: afterwards he brought his trained intellect under a new guidance, and his theology breathes the ethical spirit of Hugh of Saint Victor. He is thus a critic and a dialectician, a humanist and a divine; and it is the balance of his tastes and acquirements that makes him in many respects the fairest type of the learned men of his time.
* ↑ Sic et non, prol. p. 14, ed. Henke et Lindenkohl; cf. Theolog. Christ. iv., Opp. 2. 538 sq., ed. Cousin. [Abailard is almost repeating what saint Augustin said, ep. lxxxii ad Hieron. § 3, vol. 2. 190: 'Si aliquid in eis offendero litteris quod videatur contrarium veritati, nihil aliud quam vel mendosum esse codicem, vel interpretem non assequutum esse quod dictum est, vel me minime intellexisse, non ambigam. Alios autem ita lego ut quanta libet sanctitate doctrina que praepolleant, non ideo verum putem quia ipsi ita senserunt, sed quia mihi, vel per illos auctores canonicos, vel probabili ratione, quod a vero non abhorreat, persuadere potuerunt.' Cf. ibid., p. 245 E.]
* ↑ I have translated 'quaedam assumpta de gentilium libris,' Theol. Christ, ii. p. 401, Intr. ad Theol. ii. p. 62, according to the sense, in order to avoid the extra- ordinary misunderstanding of Dr. Reuter, Geschichte der religiösen Aufklärung im Mittelalter 1. 187, that 'die Seher des Alten Bundes, die Apostel des Neuen haben – war die Meinung – aus den Werken der Hellenischen Weisen entlehnt.' Abailard refers simply to quotations from the classics, not to the borrowing of opinions.
* ↑ See the phrase, 'si theologis fidem praebeas argumentis,' De mundi universitate ii. 5, p. 40, ed. Barach and Wrobel.
* ↑ Dr. Schaarschmidt speaks, Johannes Saresberiensis 64 sq., as though Abailard had a special proclivity to classical studies, in the way John of Salisbury had; but the passage cited in the text leads to an opposite conclusion. Abailard had no doubt an immense interest in all literature, but it may be doubted whether his classical reading was equal to that of more than one of his contemporaries. This, I find, is also the opinion of Dr. Deutsch, Peter Abälard 69.
* ↑ Augustin had gone no further than to explain an agreement with Christian doctrine which he found in Plato, on the supposition that the latter had either borrowed it from the recipients of revelation or else 'acerrimo ingenio invisibilia Dei per ea quae facta sunt, intellecta conspexerit:' De civit. Dei xi. 21, Opp. 7. 288 B, ed. Bened., 1685.
* ↑ 'Haec,' says he, Theologia Christ. iii p. 450, 'adversus illos dicta sufficiant, qui suae imperitiae solatium quaerentes, cum nos aliqua de philosophicis documentis exempla vel similitudines inducere viderint, quibus planius quod volumus fiat, statim obstrepunt quasi sacrae fidei et divinis rationibus ipsae naturae rerum a deo conditarum inimicae viderentur, quarum videlicet naturarum maximam a deo peritiam ipsi sunt a deo philosophi consecuti.'
* ↑ [See saint Bernard's caustic remark, Ubi dum multum sudat quomodo Platonem faciat Christianum, se probat ethnicum: Tract. contra error. Abaelardi iv., Opp. 1. 650 A.]
* ↑ According to the distinction of Cassiodorus: Through the work of Boëthius 'Pythagoras musicus, Ptolemaeus astronomus leguntur Itali; Nicomachus arithmeticus, geometricus Euclides audiuntur Ausonii [ed. Ausoniis]; Plato theologus, Aristoteles logicus, Quirinali voce disceptant, &c.: Variorum i. epist. 45, Opp. 1. 20 a, ed. Garet.
* ↑ A Latin version of the Phaedo and Meno was made, according to a manuscript of Corpus Christi college, Oxford, ccxliii. 14 & 16. (Coxe, Catal. Codd. mss. Coll. Oxon. 2. 101), by Euericus Aristippus, – no doubt the Henricus Aristippus mentioned by Hugo Falcandus, De tyrann. Sicul., Muratori, Rer. Ital. Script. 7. 281 C, – for Maio, great admiral of Sicily, and Hugh, archbishop of Palermo. This connexion gives a date of about 1160. There is however no symptom of the translation being used until the thirteenth century. Cf. Schaarschmidt 115 sq. [On the literary work of Euericus Aristippus see Valentin Rose, in Hermes 1. 373-389; 1866.]
* ↑ In his Dialectic, Ouvrages inédits, 475, he expressly repudiates the idea; but although it had previously had an attraction for him, I cannot agree with Cousin (ibid., intr. pp. xxxiii, xxxiv, or in the Fragments philosophiques, 2. 35) that he had ever 'professed' the doctrine.
* ↑ Anima igitur mundi, secundum quosdam, Spiritus sanctus est. Divina enim voluntate et bonitate, quae Spiritus sanctus est, ut praediximus, omnia vivunt quae in mundo vivunt: Philos. i. 15, Bed. Opp. 2. 313, or Max. Biblioth. Patr. 20. 998 H. Here it is only stated as one of several opinions on the subject. But the decisive passage occurs in William's Commentary on the Consolation of Boëthius, of which specimens are printed by Jourdain in the Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits, 20 (2). The place in question to be quoted: Anima mundi est naturalis vigor quo habent quedam res tantum moveri, quedam crescere, quedam sentire, quedam discernere. Sed qui sit ille vigor queritur. Sed, ut mihi videtur, ille vigor naturalis est Spiritus sanctus, id est, divina et benigna concordia que est id a quo omnia habent esse, moveri, crescere, sentire, vivere, discernere. Qui bene dicitur naturalis vigor, quia divino amore omnia crescunt et vigent. Qui bene dicitur anima mundi, quia solo divino amore et caritate omnia que in mundo sunt vivunt et habent vivere... Quedam vegetat et facit sentire, ut bruta animalia, quedam facit discernere, ut homines, una et eadem manens anima; sed non in omnibus exercet eamdem potentiam, et hoc tarditate et natura corporum faciente, unde Virgilius: Quantum non noxia corpora tardant.
* ↑ It was in this way that Abailard could consider the unpardonable sin, the sin against the Holy Ghost, as consisting in a denial of God's Goodness: Heloïssae Problem, xiii. Opp. 1. 256 sq. No doubt the same sense of God's absolute goodness led him to reject the doctrine of redemption as elaborated by saint Anselm, and to maintain that the work of Christ consisted in attaching mankind to God by the bond of love. See especially the Sententiae (Epitome theologiae Christianae), cap. xxiii. Opp. 2. 569 sqq. Rémusat's treatment of the whole subject, vol. 2. 402-451, is full of interest. Compare Deutsch 367-387: 'Was bei Abälard wirklich fehlt, ist der Begriff der stellvertretenden Genugthuung in dem Sinne dass die Vergebung der Sünden dadurch bedingt war, dass die Strafe derselben von Christo anstatt der Menschen getragen wurde,' p. 383.
* ↑ Nec auctor est excellentior Deo, nec ars efficacior Dei verbo, nec caussa melior, quam ut bonum crearetur a Deo bono: De civit. dei xi. 21 Opp. 7. 288 A. Cf. Confess, vii. 11 § 17 vol. 1. 140 C.
* ↑ Instances may readily be found in the Scito te ipsum of Abailard and in William's Dragmaticon: but the public action of the former is sufficiently declared. On Roscelin see Cousin, Fragments philosophiques 2. 96 sq.
* ↑ The five theological treatises, of which only the first is entitled de sancta Trinitate, were rejected as spurious by Dr. Friedrich Nitzsch, professor at Kiel, Das System des Boëthius und die ihm zugeschriebenen theologischen Schriften; Berlin 1860. [All the treatises except that De fide catholica (lib. iv. in R. Peiper's edition of the Philosophiae consolatio and Opuscula sacra, 1871) are expressly attributed to Boëthius in a brief notice contained in a Reichenau manuscript of the tenth century which there is reason to believe to be by Cassiodorus. See the edition of this Anecdoton Holderi by H. Usener, 1877. Dr. von Prantl however was not convinced by this evidence and adhered to the opinion of Nitzsch: Geschichte der Logik 2 (2nd ed.) 108 n. 35.]
* ↑ He has even the Scot's four-fold division of nature: 'Perfecta vero esset [Boëthii] divisio si ita dixisset, vel quod facere et non pati, vel quod pati et non facere, vel quod pati et facere, vel quod nec facere nec pati potest:' in Boëth. iv. p. 1227, ed. 1570.
* ↑ Those who wish to examine the intricate subject of Gilbert's views in detail will find some light in Ritter 3. 442-448, and still more in an article by Dr. Lipsius entirely devoted to Gilbert's theology, under his title, in Ersch and Gruber's Allgemeine Encyklopädie, sect. 1 vol. 67; 1858. Bishop Hefele's summary, Conciliengeschichte, 5. 446 sqq., cf. pp. 460 sq., is interesting; but he gives too much credit to the accounts of Gilbert's opponents, and would perhaps have been less adverse to the accused bishop in all respects, had the history of John of Salisbury been published at the time he wrote. Previously it was of course permissible to prefer the narrative of an eye-witness, Geoffrey of Auxerre, to that of Otto of Freising who knew what he records only by report. See below, pp. 161 sq.
* ↑ [Probably it was the publication of Gilbert's work that led Abailard to revise his Tractatus de Trinitate in the form printed as the Theologia Christiana. Some of the additions appear to be expressly directed against Gilbert's doctrine. See my article in the Church Quarterly Review, 41. 140 sqq.]
* ↑ Quod dicitur illorum, ... quilibet esse Deus, refertur ad substantiam non quae est sed qua est, id est, non ad subsistentem sed ad subsistentiam: Comm. in Boëth. i. p. 1161.
* ↑ k
* ↑ l
* ↑ m
* ↑ n
* ↑ o
* ↑ Inter caetera quae sollicitus de salute sua praevidebat, etiam hunc codicem manibus suis offerri praecepit, eumque litteratis et religiosis viris tradidit, ut si quid pro sententia magistri Gileberti, ut patet in prioribus, dixisse visus esset quod quempiam posset offendere, ad ipsorum arbitrium corrigeretur, seque catholicae fidei assertorem iuxta sanctae Romanae imo et universalis, ecclesiae regulam professus est: De gest. Frid. iv. 11 p. 452. It does not however appear whether these corrections were actually carried out. Can our present text be that of a modified recension? The 'ut patet in prioribus' rather implies, not.
* ↑ The cardinal's name is given in the edition as Albinus, but it is shewn in the Histoire littéraire de la France 14. 339 n., that A is a mistake for H, and that the letter was written to Albinus's predecessor, Henry, who died in 1188.
* ↑ Elegit autem negare omnia, etiam quae Pictavis in synodo sua manifesto arguebatur fuisse confessus. Inter negandum tamen anfractuosis quibusdam, more suo, verborum cavillationibus utebatur: Gaufr. Libell. contra capitula Gilleberti, Bern. Opp. 2. 1325 A, B.
* ↑ John's list, some of the other names in which I have added below, p. 105, is supplemented by the enumeration taken from a manuscript of Ottoboni in Mabillon, Annales O.S.B. 6. 435. This includes names like Walter of Mortagne, Theodoric of Chartres, and again Adam of the Petit Pont.
* ↑ Cf. Otto i. 46 p. 376: 'Consuetus ex ingenii subtilis magnitudine ac rationum acumine multa praeter communem hominum morem dicere.' Compare too ch. 52, p. 379.
* ↑ See John of Salisbury's words, 'Dicebant ad hoc esse convocatos, ut apostolica sedes metuschismatis cogeretur abbatem sequi:' cap. ix.
* ↑ Helinand, Chron. xlviii., a. 1148, relates a conversation he had with an adherent of Gilbert, master Stephen of Alinerra (Aliverra, or Alvierra, Alberic. Chron., a. 1149 Bouquet 13. 702 B; cf. Pertz 23. 840, 1874), one of the clerks of Henry count of Champagne, and canon of Beauvais, who boasted that at the council of Rheims 'our Bernard could prevail nothing against his Gilbert,' and detracted in other ways from Bernard's reputation in the affair. Wherefore, conjectures the chronicler, master Stephen died in the very year of this interview: Tissier, Bibliotheca Patrum Cisterciensium 7, 186 b; 1669.
* ↑ [See an interesting account in an anonymous Liber de vera Philosophia, which was written not long after 1179, printed by M. Paul Fournier in the Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes, 47. 405; 1886. 'De qua [questione],' says this writer, '… sufficienter disputatum est; sed prorsus nihil inde diffinitum est; quia omnino sineiudieio, prudenti tamen consilio, dimissa est in dubio.']
* ↑ Se vero dicebat non maiori sapientia vel gratia praeditum quam apostolos et prophetas, qui licet in eis loqueretur Spiritus sanctus, tamen aliis facti sunt odor vite in vitam et aliis odor mortis in mortem: Hist. pontific. xiii. p. 527.
* ↑ In his obituary in a Breton chronicle he is described as 'mirae abstinentiae monachus, tantaeque subtilitatis philosophus cui nostra parem nec prima [leg. priora?] secundum secula viderunt:' Chron. Britann., a. 1143, Bouquet 12. 558 b. The first words of the sentence are very remarkable when we bear in mind the assertions commonly made as to Abailard's loss of credit in consequence of his relations with Heloïssa.
* ↑ 'Magister Petrus Abaulart, canonicus primo maioris ecclesie Senonensis, obiit; qui monasteria sanctimonialium fundavit, specialiter abbatiam de Paraclito, in quo sepelitur cum uxore:' cited from the chronicle of Saint Pierre le Vif at Sens in the Histoire littéraire de la France, 21. 12 n. 1; 1847.
* ↑ I conjecture that this concluding portion in William, p. 675 b, c, is not original, but that he and the others have taken it from a common source. Else I know not how the latter writers, supposing that they drew from William, should have passed over the question of Abailard's trial in silence. For the rest, William is, so far as I know, the first writer who gives the famous epitaph: Est satis in titulo Petrus hic iacet Abäelardus: Huic soli patuit scibile quicquid erat.
* ↑ This does not of course hold true of the proper theological literature. Compare below, appendix x.
* ↑ Vincent has elsewhere, Speculum naturale xxxiii. 94, a notice of the council of Sens in which he merely says that Abailard 'quadam prophana verborum vel sensuum novitate scandalizabat ecclesiam.' The phrase is characteristic, and recurs in some of the continuators of Sigebert, Appendix alterius Roberti, Bouquet 13. 330 e, 331 a, and Contin. Praemonstrat., Pertz 6. 452, who also apply it in modified terms to Gilbert of La Porrée. Gilbert's work, they say, a. 1148, Bouquet 332 d, Pertz 454, 'by reason of some new subtilty of words caused scandal to the church.' Robert however admits that it 'contained many useful things.' Among later writers William of Nangy, a. 1141 and 1148, Bouquet 20. 731 d, 733 d-734 a, is mainly dependent for his views upon Geoffrey, whose description of Abailard, 'celeberrimus in opinione scientiae sed do fide perfide dogmatizans' (Vit. Bern. v. 13 col. 1122 b) he substantially adopts.
* ↑ Actually in William of Nangy the names thus occur, with that of the Irish saint Malachy inserted between them: Chron., a. 1138, Bouquet 20. 730 e.
* ↑ Compare the significant way in which John of Cornwall, a most correct writer, refers to an opinion of Gilbert's: 'Magister Gilebertus Porretanus, ut multi perhibent, ea docuit. . . Sed quia super iis aliquod eius scriptum non legi et auditores sui etiam a se invicem dissentiunt, ad alios transeo:' Ad Alex. pap. III. ap. Martene et Durand, Thesaur. nov. Anecd. 5. 1665 a; Paris 1717 folio. One hardly suspects heresy here; yet John was a contemporary.