OF HOW HE RETURNED TO PARIS AND FINISHED THE GLOSSES WHICH HE HAD
BEGUN AT LAON
And so, after a few days, I returned to Paris, and there for
several years I peacefully directed the school which formerly had
been destined for me, nay, even offered to me, but from which I had
been driven out. At the very outset of my work there, I set about
completing the glosses on Ezekiel which I had begun at Laon. These
proved so satisfactory to all who read them that they came to
believe me no less adept in lecturing on theology than I had proved
myself to be in the held of philosophy. Thus my school was notably
increased in size by reason of my lectures on subjects of both
these kinds, and the amount of financial profit as well as glory
which it brought me cannot be concealed from you, for the matter
was widely talked of. But prosperity always puffs up the foolish,
and worldly comfort enervates the soul, rendering it an easy prey
to carnal temptations. Thus I, who by this time had come to regard
myself as the only philosopher remaining in the whole world, and
had ceased to fear any further disturbance of my peace, began to
loosen the rein on my desires, although hitherto I had always lived
in the utmost continence. And the greater progress I made in my
lecturing on philosophy or theology, the more I departed alike from
the practice of the philosophers and the spirit of the divines in
the uncleanness of my life. For it is well known, methinks, that
philosophers, and still more those who have devoted their lives to
arousing the love of sacred study, have been strong above all else
in the beauty of chastity.
Thus did it come to pass that while I was utterly absorbed in pride
and sensuality, divine grace, the cure for both diseases, was
forced upon me, even though I, forsooth, would fain have shunned
it. First was I punished for my sensuality, and then for my pride.
For my sensuality I lost those things whereby I practiced it; for
my pride, engendered in me by my knowledge of letters--and it is
even as the Apostle said: "Knowledge puffeth itself up" (I Cor.
viii, 1)--I knew the humiliation of seeing burned the very book in
which I most gloried. And now it is my desire that you should know
the stories of these two happenings, understanding them more truly
from learning the very facts than from hearing what is spoken of
them, and in the order in which they came about. Because I had ever
held in abhorrence the foulness of prostitutes, because I had
diligently kept myself from all excesses and from association with
the women of noble birth who attended the school, because I knew so
little of the common talk of ordinary people, perverse and subtly
flattering chance gave birth to an occasion for casting me lightly
down from the heights of my own exaltation. Nay, in such case not
even divine goodness could redeem one who, having been so proud,
was brought to such shame, were it not for the blessed gift of
grace.