A RETURN TO THE ARENA
The literary and personal activity described in the preceding
chapter, together with the elaboration of a new ‘theology,’ of which
we shall read presently, brings the story of Abélard’s life down to
1135 or 1136. His movements during the three or four years after his
flight from St. Gildas are very obscure. St. Bernard seems to speak
of his presence in Paris at one time, though the passages can, and
perhaps should, be explained away. Heloise speaks of his visits to
the Paraclete. On the whole he probably remained in Brittany, at
Nantes or Pallet, and devoted his time to literary work. But in 1136
we find him in Paris once more. Whether the monks succeeded in making
Brittany too insecure for him, or the count failed to guarantee his
income, or a natural disgust with the situation and longing for the
intellectual arena impelled him to return, we cannot say. It is only
known that in 1136 he was once more quickening the scholastic life of
Europe from the familiar slope of St. Genevieve.
So swift and eventful has been the career of the great teacher that
one realises with difficulty that he is now almost an old man, a
man in his fifty-seventh or fifty-eighth year. It is twenty years
since the grim termination of his early Parisian activity, and a new
generation fills the schools. The ideas with which he first startled
and conquered the intellectual world have been made familiar. The
vigour, the freshness, the charming pertinacity of youth have
departed. Yet there is no master in Christendom, young or old, that
can restrain the flood of ‘barbarians’ when ‘Li mestre’ reappears
at Paris. John of Salisbury was amongst the crowd. It is from his
_Metalogicus_ that we first learn of Abélard’s return to the arena,
and the renewal of his old triumph. St. Bernard fully confirms the
story, after his fashion. Indeed, in one sense Abélard’s triumph was
greater than ever, for he gathered a notable group of followers about
him on St. Genevieve. There was Arnold of Brescia, the scourge of the
Italian clergy, the ‘gad-fly’ of the hierarchy. There was Gilbert de
la Porée, a dreaded dialectician and rationalistic theologian. There
was Hyacinth, the young deacon and noble from Rome, afterwards a
power in the sacred college. There was Bérenger, the caustic critic,
who gave Bernard many an unpleasant quarter of an hour. There were
future bishops and theologians in remarkable numbers.
However, we have no information of a definite character until five
years afterwards. In fact John of Salisbury complicates the situation
by stating that Abélard withdrew shortly after 1136. Deutsch thinks
that Abélard left Paris for a few years; Hausrath, on the contrary,
conjectures that he merely changed the locality of his school. John
of Salisbury would, in that case, have followed his lectures in the
cloistral school in 1136, and would have remained faithful to the
abbey, following Abélard’s successor, a Master Alberic, when Abélard
was, for some unknown reason, constrained to move his chair to the
chapel of St. Hilary, also on the slope of St. Genevieve. According
to the _Historia Pontificalis_ it was at St. Hilary that Bernard
visited him in 1141. It is an ingenious way of keeping Abélard
in Paris during the five years, as most historians would prefer
to do. Its weak point is the supposition that John of Salisbury
would continue to attend at the abbey of St. Genevieve with Abélard
teaching a few yards away.
The difficulty may be gladly left to the chronologist. The first
great fact in Abélard’s career after his return to Paris is that St.
Bernard begins to take an active interest in his teaching in the
spring of 1141. Ten short weeks afterwards the prestige of the great
teacher was shattered beyond recall, and he set out upon his pathetic
journey to the tomb. It was a tense, a titanic struggle, on the side
of Bernard.
According to the religious story-books the episode is very clear and
highly honourable to Bernard. Abbot Abélard had rewritten, with what
he thought to be emendations, the theological treatise which had been
burnt at Soissons. Under the title of the _Theologia Christiana_,
this rationalistic exposition and defence of the dogmas of the faith,
especially of the Trinity, had ‘crossed the seas and leaped over the
Alps,’ in Bernard’s vivid phraseology. With it travelled also an
_Introductio ad theologiam_, which was written soon after it, and his
_Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans_, of earlier date. The books
we have previously mentioned, the _Sic et Non_, and the _Ethics_
or _Know Thyself_, had a more limited and secluded circulation.
The theological work which has the title of _Epitome Theologiae
Christianae_ or _Sententiae Petri Abaelardi_ is considered by most
experts to be a collection of his opinions drawn up by some other
masters for scholastic use.[25]
[25] It is quite beside the writer’s purpose, and probably the
reader’s pleasure, to give an analysis of these works. I shall
presently treat the specific points that have relation to his
condemnation, and I add a supplementary chapter on his teaching
in general. Deutsch may be read by the curious, and Herr Hausrath
gives a useful shorter analysis.
The story runs that these works chanced to intrude on the pious
meditations of a mystic theologian of the name of William of St.
Thierry. William was very nearly a saint, and the new theology
shocked him inexpressibly. He had been abbot of St. Thierry at
Rheims, but had been elevated from the Benedictine level to the
Cistercian under Bernard’s influence, and was peacefully composing a
commentary on the highly mystical ‘Song of Songs,’ in the Cistercian
monastery at Signy, when Abélard’s heresies reached him.[26] In his
horror he selected thirteen definite heretical statements from the
books, and sent them, with the treatises, to his pious and powerful
friend, Bernard of Clairvaux, with a pressing request to examine
them and take action. Bernard replied that a cursory perusal of the
books seemed to justify his follower’s zeal. He would put the matter
aside until after Holy Week, then talk it over with William. In the
meantime William must bear patiently with his inactivity, since
he ‘had hitherto known little or nothing of these things.’ Easter
over, and the conference having presumably taken place, Bernard was
convinced of Abélard’s errors. Faithful to Christ’s direction, he
went up to Paris, and personally reproved his erring brother, without
witnesses. Bernard’s biographer (and secretary-monk) assures that
Abélard promised to amend his ways. The amendment not taking place,
Bernard paid him a second brotherly visit, and, as he refused to
comply, Bernard followed out the evangelical direction of reproving
him before others. He attacked him in the presence of his students,
warning the latter that they must burn his heretical writings
forthwith. It is one of the scenes in Abélard’s career which it
would have been interesting to have witnessed.
[26] A good idea of the man, and of the rapidly growing school he
belonged to, will be formed from the opening sentence of one of
his treatises: ‘Rotting in the lake of misery and in the mire of
filth, and stuck in the mud of the abyss that has no substance,
and from the depths of my grief, I cry out to Thee, O Lord.’ He
was in the midst of a similar Bernardesque composition when he
received Abélard’s works.
However, we must defer for a moment the continuation of the
Bernardist version of the encounter, and examine the course of events
more critically.
The theory that St. Bernard had not occupied himself with the errors
of Abélard until William of St. Thierry drew his attention to them
is a very poor and foolish composition. We could as well imagine
that Newman knew ‘little or nothing’ of Dr. Arnold’s views in the
early thirties. Bernard and Abélard had been for many years the
supreme representatives of the new ‘High’ and ‘Broad’ movements of
the twelfth century; and Bernard had a far more intense dread of
rationalism than Newman. Scarcely an event of moderate importance
occurred in Church, school, or state, in France at least, that
escaped the eye of the abbot of Clairvaux in those days. He
was ‘acting-Pope’ to the Church of Christ, and he felt all the
responsibility. And, amongst the multitudinous cares of his office,
none gave him greater concern than the purity of the faith and the
purification of the disquieting scholastic activity of the day.
We have seen in a former chapter how largely antithetic his position
was to that of Abélard, and that he was a man who could not doubt
for a moment the truth of his own conception of religion. There was
the same marked antithesis at the very bases of their theological
conceptions, in the mental soil in which those conceptions took
root. Bernard was more authoritative than Anselm of Laon, more
mystic than Anselm of Canterbury. He had gone further than Anselm
on the theory that ‘faith precedes reason’; Abélard had gone beyond
Roscelin with the inverse proposition. Perhaps Bernard’s commentary
on the ‘Song of Songs’ furnishes the best illustration of his frame
of mind and his outlook. Towards the close of his life he devoted
himself to long and profound meditation on that beautiful piece of
Oriental literature. We must not forget, of course, that the Church
is largely responsible for his extravagance on this point. It has
indeed taken the civilisation of the West more than two thousand
years to discover that its glowing verses are inspired only by the
rounded limbs and sweet breath of a beautiful woman; and its most
erotic passages are still solemnly applied to the Mother of Christ on
her annual festivals. But Bernard revelled in its ‘mystic’ phrases.
Day by day, for more than a year, he gathered his monks about him in
the _auditorium_ at Clairvaux, and expounded to them the profound
spiritual meanings of the ‘Song.’ Eighty-three long sermons barely
exhausted the first two chapters. In the end he devoted three lengthy
discourses, on successive days, to the elucidation of the words: ‘In
my bed at night I have longed for him whom my soul loveth.’
This mystic and unreasoning attitude brought him into fundamental
antagonism with Abélard. To him faith was the soul’s first duty;
reason might think itself fortunate if there were crumbs of knowledge
in the accepted writings which it could digest. To reason, to ask
a question, was honestly incomprehensible and abhorrent to him. He
insisted that the rationalist told God he would not accept what he
could not understand; whereas the rationalist was prevented by his
own logic from questioning the veracity of the Infinite, and merely
insisted that, in a world of hallucination and false pretence, it
were well to make sure that the proposition in question really did
come from God. Bernard thought reasoning about the Trinity implied
irreverence or incredulity; Abélard felt it to be a high service to
divine truth, in preparing it for minds which were not blessed with
the mystic sense. Bernard believed Christ died purely and crudely
to make amends to the Father; Abélard thought this would impute
vindictiveness to God. And so on through a long list of dogmatic
points which were of unspeakable importance in the eyes of the
twelfth century.
A conflict was inevitable. In Bernard’s thought Abélard was employing
an extraordinary ability to the grave prejudice of the honour of
God, the safety of the Church, and the supreme interest of humanity.
Bernard would have deserted his principles and his clear subjective
duty if he had remained silent. If he had ‘a quick ear’ to catch
‘the distant thunder roll of free inquiry,’ as Cotter Morison says,
and no one questions, he must have turned his zealous attention to
Abélard long ago, as we have already seen. But the rationalist had
been rendered powerless in Brittany for some years. Now that he was
teaching with great effectiveness at Paris once more, Bernard could
not but take action.
However, it is a task of extreme difficulty for an impartial
student to trace with confidence the early stages of that memorable
conflict. We have seen the Bernardist version; the version of some
of the recent biographers of Abélard is very different. Deutsch
and Hausrath, able and critical scholars, believe that the letter
from William of St. Thierry had been written, wholly or in part,
by Bernard himself; that Bernard’s reply was part of a comedy of
intrigue; that a timid and treacherous conventicle of the Cistercian
monks, including Bernard, had deliberately drawn up in advance
this equivocal plan of campaign. Now, if the Catholic enthusiast
is incapable of dealing quite impartially with such a problem,
it is equally certain that the heretic has a similar disturbing
element in his natural predilection for picking holes in the coats
of the canonised. The evidence must be examined very carefully.
The presumption is that a man of the exalted idealism and stern
self-discipline of St. Bernard would not lend himself to such
manœuvres. Yet these things are not inconsistent with the dignity
of canonisation; moreover, the object was a great and holy one—and
Bernard had a mortal dread of the dialectician.
In the first place, then, it is impossible to credit Bernard with the
whole of the letter which bears the name of William of St. Thierry.
Much of it is by no means Bernardesque in style and manner; and
there are passages which it is quite impossible, on moral grounds,
to conceive as having been written by Bernard himself. At the same
time much of it does certainly seem to have been written by Bernard.
There are few better judges of such a point than Deutsch. The
contention that William would not have dared to address such a demand
simultaneously to Bernard and Geoffrey without instructions is more
precarious.
On the other hand, the letter seems in many respects to support the
idea of a diplomatic arrangement. It is addressed to Bernard and to
Geoffrey of Chartres, and opens as follows: ‘God knows that I am
filled with confusion, my lords and fathers, when I am constrained
to address you, insignificant as I am, on a matter of grave urgency,
since you and others whose duty it is to speak remain silent.’ After
a little of this strain he recounts how he ‘lately chanced to read a
certain work’ of the dreadful heretic he has named—the _Theology of
Peter Abélard_. From it he selects thirteen heretical propositions
(we shall meet them later), which he submits to their judgment. If
they also condemn, he calls for prompt and effective action. ‘God
knows that I too have loved him’ [Abélard], he says, ‘and would
remain in charity with him, but in such a cause as this I know no
friend or acquaintance.’ Finally, he says: ‘There are, I am told,
other works of his, the _Sic et Non_ and the _Scito te Ipsum_, and
others ... but I am told that they shun the light, and cannot be
found.’
Without straining an impressionist argument, it may be at once
pointed out that the letter betrays itself. Several of the
propositions in the list are not found in either of Abélard’s
theologies; they are taken from the works which William affirms he
has never seen. An intrigue is revealed; some other person, not at
Signy, has had an important share in the epistle, if not in the
actual writing of it. Again, as Neander says in his _Life of St.
Bernard_, the passage about his affection cannot be taken seriously;
he had been passionately devoted to Bernard for some years. The
letter is evidently written for use or publication, and reveals a
curious piece of acting.
Bernard’s reply is also clearly ‘part of the comedy,’ as Hausrath
says. Bernard is much addicted to _tutoyer_ his friends, even his
lady friends.[27] His previous letters to William, written before
he was a ‘son of religion’ and a devoted follower, are written in
that familiar style. But in this brief note ‘thou’ and ‘thine’ become
‘you’ and ‘your.’ ‘I consider your action both just and necessary.
The book itself, betraying the mouth of those that speak iniquity,
proves that it was not idle.... But since I am not accustomed, as
you know well, to trust my own judgment, especially in matters of
such moment,’ it must wait a little. He will see William about it
after Easter. ‘In the meantime be not impatient of my silence and
forbearance in these matters; most of them, indeed nearly all of
them, were not known to me before (cum horum plurima et pene omnia
hucusque nescierim).’
[27] Witness his genial letter to our English Matilda.
The letter is almost incomprehensible, coming from such a man. _He_
take the first discovery of so influential a heretic so calmly; _he_
not trust his own judgment in such matters! Save for the literary
form, which is unmistakable, the letter is wholly out of place in the
bulky volume of Bernard’s correspondence. It is part of the play;
and its brevity and vagueness seem to indicate an unwillingness or
ethical discomfort on the part of the writer.
The closing sentence in it has given trouble even to Bernard’s
biographers, and must disconcert every admirer of the great
uplifter of the twelfth century. Cotter Morison says ‘he must refer
to the special details’ of Abélard’s teaching. It is impossible to
acquit the words of the charge of evasiveness and a half-conscious
inaccuracy, even if they be so interpreted. We have already given
the general considerations which compel us to think Bernard made
himself fully acquainted with Abélard’s opinions. We have already
discussed the probability of his share in the driving of Abélard into
Brittany. Other indications are not wanting. In 1132 Bernard was
sent on a papal mission into Burgundy; his companion was Joscelin,
Abélard’s early rival. Bernard attacks with some spirit the errors
of an unnamed master in his _Treatise on Baptism_; these errors are
the opinions of Abélard. On one occasion, indeed, they had a direct
controversy. Bernard had visited the Paraclete, and had criticised
the way in which the nuns, following Abélard’s direction, recited the
Lord’s Prayer. Abélard had inserted ‘supersubstantial’ for ‘daily.’
Heloise duly reported the criticism, and Abélard flew to arms. The
letter was characteristic. A sweet and genial prelude, a crushing
argumentative onslaught, and an ironical inversion of the charge.
‘But let each do as he pleases,’ the rhetorician concluded; ‘I do
not wish to persuade any man to follow me in this. He may change the
words of Christ as he likes.’
However, we need not strain detailed indications. It is impossible
to think that Bernard was unacquainted with ‘novelties’ that the
echo of a great name had borne to the ends of the earth.[28] When
we have seen the whole story of Bernard’s share in the struggle, it
will be easier to understand this letter. It is puerile to think
that we detract anything from the moral and spiritual greatness of
St. Bernard in admitting an occasional approach to the common level
of humanity. And there was present in strength that delusive ideal
which has led so many good men into fields that were foreign to their
native grandeur—the good of the Church.
[28] _Fas est et ab hoste doceri._ The Benedictine defenders of
Bernard (in _Migne_) say, in another connection: ‘Was there a
single cardinal or cleric in Rome who was unacquainted with his
dogmas?’
There is no record of a conference with William of St. Thierry
after Easter. The pupil has played his part, and he now vanishes
completely from the theatre. But from the subsequent report which
was sent to the pope, and from the _Life of St. Bernard_, written
by his admiring secretary, we learn that Bernard visited Abélard in
private, and admonished him of his errors. The scene is unfortunately
left to the imagination; though the report we have mentioned speaks
of a ‘friendly and familiar admonition.’ Bernard’s biographer would
have us believe that Abélard was quite subdued—the ‘rhinoceros’ was
tamed again—by Bernard’s brotherly address, and promised to retract
his errors. It is possible that Abélard put him off with amiable
generalities, but quite incredible that he made any such promise. We
need not speculate, with Hausrath, on the probability of interference
from his more ardent students. The episcopal report to the pope
does not mention any broken promise. It could have used such a
circumstance with great effect.
Then followed Bernard’s second visit and warning. It would be
difficult to say which dreaded the other more in these curious
interviews, but Bernard had convinced himself of his duty to
crush Abélard, and he was following out a very correct and
excellently-devised scheme. The Gospel required a twofold personal
correction of an erring brother, before he was denounced to the
synagogue. The second one was to have witnesses. Bernard therefore
boldly admonished Abélard in the presence of his students, and bade
them burn the works of their master. It is a thousand pities we have
no Abélardist record of these proceedings.
If Abélard said little during the conferences, he must have known
that he was rapidly approaching another, perhaps a supreme, crisis
in his life. He knew his Gospel, and he knew Bernard. The next step
was the denunciation to the synagogue. He had had an experience of
such denunciation, and he would certainly not expect a less insidious
attack from the abbot of Clairvaux, who had avoided his dialectical
skill so long. He determined to checkmate the Cistercians. Very
shortly afterwards Bernard was dismayed to receive a letter from the
Archbishop of Sens, in which he was invited to meet the redoubtable
dialectician at Sens in a few weeks’ time, and discuss the right
and wrong of their quarrel before the whole spiritual and temporal
nobility of France.
It was now a question of dialectics and rhetoric versus diplomacy;
though indeed we must credit Abélard—or his ‘esquire,’ as Bernard
calls Arnold of Brescia—with a fine diplomatic move in claiming the
discussion. There are several reasons for thinking that the Bishop
of Paris was in Rome at the time, or the discussion should have
been sought at Notre Dame. The next _instantia_ was the Archbishop
of Sens, and Abélard continued to assail that prelate until he was
forced to accept the petition. Not improbably it appealed to the
sporting instinct of old ‘Henry the Boar,’ a man of noble extraction,
and of extremely worldly life before he fell under the influence of
the ubiquitous Bernard. The quarrel of the two great luminaries of
France was now notorious. He could not well refuse to open the lists
for a superb trial by combat.
But Bernard had an entirely different theory of the condemnation of a
heretic. He trusted to his personal influence and immense epistolary
power. Abélard’s works were available, and were sufficient for the
grounding of a condemnation, he said. He was not merely impatient of
the implied doubt of the infallibility of his judgment; he shrank
nervously from the thought of such an encounter. He did not conceal
for a moment his dread of Abélard’s power. ‘I am a boy beside him,’
he pleaded, ‘and he is a warrior from his youth.’ On the other hand,
if it became a question of a diplomatic struggle for a condemnation
of the books at Rome, the positions would be exactly reversed. He
refused to enter the lists with Abélard.
In the meantime the day which the Archbishop of Sens had appointed
was rapidly approaching. It was the Octave of, or eighth day
after, Pentecost. On the Sunday after Whitsunday, now dedicated
to the Trinity, there was to be a brilliant religious function in
the cathedral at Sens. It was customary to expose the relics to
veneration on that day, and as Sens, the metropolitan church of
Paris[29] and other important towns, had a very valuable collection
of relics, the ceremony attracted a notable gathering of lords,
spiritual and temporal. Louis VII. was to be there, with the usual
escort of French nobles: the curiously compounded monarch had a
profound veneration for relics, and something like a passion for
the ceremonies that accompanied their translation, veneration, and
so forth. All the suffragans of the archbishop would be present,
with a number of other bishops, and abbots, clerics, and masters
innumerable. Quite apart from the duel between the greatest thinker
and the greatest orator in Europe, there would be a very important
and weighty gathering at the cathedral on that day. Abélard willingly
assented. Bernard is fond of repeating in his later letters that
Abélard set to work ‘to summon his friends and followers from all
parts.’ We shall see that the only noteworthy supporters of Abélard
at Sens were pupils or masters from Paris, which lay at a convenient
distance. Bernard was shortly to lose his serenity in a sea of
rhetoric.
[29] The see of Paris was not elevated into an archbishopric
until a much later date.
There is a minor quarrel as to whether Bernard reversed his decision,
and intimated his acceptance to the archbishop before the day
arrived. Father Hefele thinks he did so. It is, however, clear that,
in his letter to the pope afterwards, Bernard wishes to convey the
impression that he held out until the last moment, and only yielded
to the entreaties of his friends in actually presenting himself.
We shall refer to this letter to Pope Innocent shortly, but it is
worth while to notice now the edifying picture he draws of his
own preparation in contrast with that of ‘the dragon.’ Abélard
is represented as feverishly whipping up his supporters, whilst
Bernard refuses to hear of such an encounter, not only on account
of Abélard’s world-famed skill in debate, but also because he thinks
it improper to discuss sacred things in this fashion. But friends
represent that the Church will suffer, and the enemies of Christ
triumph. Wearily and ‘without preparation’—trusting wholly in the
divine promise of inspiration—he presents himself on the appointed
day before ‘Goliath.’
In point of historical fact there is no reason for thinking that
Abélard made any effort to gather supporters. The few we read of
accompanied him from Paris. He had scarcely a single friend in the
ranks of his ‘judges.’ On the other hand we _do_ know that Bernard
himself sent out a strong and imperious ‘whip’ to his episcopal
supporters. There is a brief letter, contained in the _Migne_
collection, which was despatched to all the French bishops on whom
Bernard could rely for sympathy and support. They have heard, he
says, of his summons to appear at Sens on the Octave of Pentecost.
‘If the cause were a personal one,’ he goes on, ‘the child of
your holiness could perhaps not undeservedly look to your support
[patrocinium]. But it is your cause, and more than yours; and so I
admonish you the more confidently and entreat you the more earnestly
to prove yourselves friends in this necessity—friends, I should say,
not of me, but of Christ.’ And he goes on to prejudge the case in
the mind of the official judges with his rhetorical denunciation of
Abélard’s heresies. ‘Be not surprised,’ he concludes, ‘that I summon
you so suddenly and with so brief a notice; this is another ruse
of our cunning adversary, so that he might meet us unprepared and
unarmed.’
The consequence of the sending of this whip will be apparent when we
come to examine the composition of the gathering at Sens. It marks
the beginning of a period of most remarkable intrigue. The idyllic
picture of the poor abbot making his way at the last moment to the
assembly with a sublime trust in Providence and the righteousness of
his cause must be regarded again at the close of the next chapter.
Whether Bernard formally accepted the summons or not, therefore,
authentic information was conveyed to both sides that the debate
would take place. It will be readily imagined how profoundly stirred
the kingdom of France would be over such an expectation. The bare
qualities of the antagonists put the discussion leagues above any
remembered or contemporary event in the scholastic world; the object
of the debate—the validity of the new thought that was rapidly
infecting the schools—was a matter of most material concern. Deutsch
has a theory of the conflict which seems to be only notable as an
illustration of the profundity of the Teutonic mind. He opines
there may have been a political struggle underlying the academic
demonstration. Louis was just beginning his struggle with Rome over
the vexed question of investitures, and it is conceivable that the
Abélardists leaned to the side of the king, in opposition to Bernard
and the ‘ultramontanes.’ It is conceivable, but not at all probable.
Abélard’s sermon on St. Peter indicates a really ultramontane
sentiment; moreover, he has ever kept aloof from the political side
of life. His follower, Arnold of Brescia, would be likely enough
to fall in with any such regal design. Arnold was a young Luther,
of premature birth. Born in Italy at the beginning of the twelfth
century, he had travelled to France, and studied under Abélard, at an
early age. He returned to Italy, and assumed the monastic habit. An
enthusiastic idealist and a man of proportionate energy and audacity,
he soon entered upon a fiery crusade against the sins of the monks,
the clergy, and the hierarchy. He was driven from Italy in 1139, then
from Switzerland, and he had just taken refuge in Paris when Bernard
started his campaign. Since one of his most prominent theories was
that the higher clergy should be stripped of all temporal privileges
and possessions, his place is easily determined on the question
of investitures. However, it is most unlikely that he should have
dragged Abélard into these semi-political and dangerous questions.
And although Bernard most sedulously urges the association of the
hated Arnold with Abélard in his letters to Rome, he never mentions
a suspicion of such a coalition as Deutsch suggests; nor, in fine,
does the conduct of the secular arm give the least countenance to the
theory.
The conflict was inevitable, without the concurrence of any political
intrigue. Abélard and Bernard were the natural representatives of
schools which could no longer lie down in peace in the fold of the
Church. Abélard foresaw disaster to the Church in the coming age
of restless inquiry unless its truths could be formulated in his
intellectual manner. Bernard was honestly convinced that Abélard was
‘preparing the way for Anti-Christ.’ And it followed as a further
consequence that Bernard should wish to avoid the discussion to which
Abélard looked for salvation from the menace of the mystical school.
It will appear presently that Bernard was less concerned with the
details of Abélard’s teaching than with his spirit. He, however,
dwells on them for controversial purposes, and they are certainly
full of interest for the modern mind. The point will be more fully
developed in a supplementary chapter. For the moment a brief glance
at them will be instructive enough. They differ a little in Bernard’s
letter from the list given by William of St. Thierry, but one cannot
even glance at them without noticing how remarkably this thinker
of the twelfth century anticipated the judgment of the nineteenth
century. His theses, like the theses of the advanced theology of
these latter days, indicate two tendencies—an intellectual tendency
to the more rational presentment of dogma, and an ethical tendency to
the greater moralisation of ancient dogma.
We have already seen a good illustration of this anticipation of
modern tendencies in Abélard’s treatment of the traditional doctrines
of heaven and hell respectively, and we shall see more later on.
Of the fourteen specific points (thirteen in William’s letter)
contained in the present indictment, we may pass over most of those
which refer to the Trinity as without interest. Abélard’s phrases
were new, but he cordially rejected the Arianism, Nestorianism, and
so forth, with which Bernard insisted on crediting him. In the ninth
proposition, that the species of bread and wine remain in the air
after transubstantiation, and that adventurous mice only eat the
species, not the Body of Christ, Abélard enunciated an opinion which
has been widely adopted by modern Catholic theologians. In his second
proposition, that the Holy Ghost was the Platonic _anima mundi_,
Abélard was merely trying to save Plato from the damnation of the
Bernardists.
On the ethical side, Abélard’s theses (in their context in his works)
are truly remarkable. Thus the third, ‘That God can only do those
things which He actually does, and in the way and at the time that
He does them,’ and the seventh, ‘That God is not bound to prevent
evil,’ are obviously indications of an ethical attempt to save the
sanctity of the Infinite in view of the triumph of evil. ‘That Christ
did not become Man for the purpose of saving us from the yoke of
the devil’ is an early formulation of the familiar modern conception
of the Incarnation. ‘That God does not do more for the elect, before
they accept his grace, than for the damned,’ and ‘That we have
shared the punishment but not the guilt of Adam,’ are further clear
anticipations of the refined theology of modern times. ‘No man can
sin before he exists,’ said Abélard, to Bernard’s mighty indignation.
‘That God alone remits sin’ is heretical to the modern Catholic, but
the dogma was not completely born until the following century;[30]
‘that evil thoughts, and even pleasure, are not of themselves
sinful, but only the consent given to them,’ and ‘that the Jews who
crucified Christ in ignorance did not sin, that acts which are done
in ignorance cannot be sinful,’ express the universal opinion of even
modern Catholic theologians, in the sense in which Abélard held them.
[30] And the thesis is rejected in Abélard’s _Apology_.
And ‘these,’ wrote Bernard, with fine contempt, to his friend, Pope
Innocent, ‘are the chief errors of the theology, or rather the
stultilogy, of Peter Abélard.’