FREE ESSAY ON PETER ABELARD

PETER ABELARD

Jacques Maritain Center : Readings
Abelard
Abelard, Peter, dialectician, philosopher, and theologian, b. 1079; d. 1142. Peter
Abelard (also spelled Abeillard, Abailard,
etc., while the best MSS. have Abaelardus) was born in the little village of Pallet,
about ten miles east of Nantes in Brittany.
His father, Berengar, was lord of the village, his mother's name was Lucia; both
afterwards entered the monastic state. Peter,
the oldest of their children, was intended for a military career, but, as he himself
tells us, he abandoned Mars for Minerva, the
profession of arms for that of learning. Accordingly, at an early age, he left his
father's castle and sought instruction as a
wandering scholar at the schools of the most renowned teachers of those days. Among these
teachers was Roscelin the
Nominalist, at whose school at Locmenach, near Vannes, Abelard certainly spent some time
before he proceeded to Paris.
Although the University of Paris did not exist as a corporate institution until more than
half a century after Abelard's death, there
flourished at Paris in his time the Cathedral School, the School of Ste. Genevieve, and
that of St. Germain des Pre, the
forerunners of the university schools of the following century. The Cathedral School was
undoubtedly the most important of
these, and thither the young Abelard directed his steps in order to study dialectic under
the renowned master (scholasticus)
William of Champeaux. Soon, however, the youth from the province, for whom the prestige
of a great name was far from
awe-inspiring, not only ventured to object to the teaching of the Parisian master, but
attempted to set up as a rival teacher.
Finding that this was not an easy matter in Paris, he established his school first at
Melun and later at Corbeil. This was,
probably, in the year 1101. The next couple of years Abelard spent in his native place
almost cut off from France, as he says.
The reason of this enforced retreat from the dialectical fray was failing health. On
returning to Paris, he became once more a
pupil of William of Champeaux for the purpose of studying rhetoric. When William retired
to the monastery of St. Victor,
Abelard, who meantime had resumed his teaching at Melun, hastened to Paris to secure the
chair of the Cathedral School.
Having failed in this, he set up his school in Mt. Ste. Genevieve (1108). There and at
the Cathedral School, in which in 1113 he
finally succeeded in obtaining a chair, he enjoyed the greatest renown as a teacher of
rhetoric and dialectic. Before taking up
the duty of teaching theology at the Cathedral School, he went to Laon where he presented
himself to the venerable Anselm of
Laon as a student of theology. Soon, however, his petulant restiveness under restraint
once more asserted itself, and he was not
content until he had as completely discomfited the teacher of theology at Laon as he had
successfully harassed the teacher of
rhetoric and dialectic at Paris. Taking Abelard's own account of the incident, it is
impossible not to blame him for the temerity
which made him such enemies as Alberic and Lotulph, pupils of Anselm, who, later on,
appeared against Abelard. The
theological studies pursued by Abelard at Laon were what we would nowadays call the study
of exegesis.
There can be no doubt that Abelard's career as a teacher at Paris, from 1108 to 1118, was
an exceptionally brilliant one. In his
Story of My Calamities (Historia Calamitatum) he tells us how pupils flocked to him from
every country in Europe, a
statement which is more than corroborated by Ihe authority of his contemporaries. He was,
In fact, the idol of Paris; eloquent,
vivacious, handsome, possessed of an unusually rich voice, full of confidence in his own
power to please, he had, as he tells us,
the whole world at his feet. That Abelard was unduly conscious of these advantages is
admitted by his most ardent admirers;
indeed, in the Story of My Calamities, he confesses that at that period of his life he
was filled with vanity and pride. To these
faults he attributes his downfall, which was as swift and tragic as was everything,
seemingly, in his meteoric career. He tells us in
graphic language the tale which has become part of the classic literature of the
love-theme, how he fell in love with Heloise,
niece of Canon Fulbert; he spares us none of the details of the story, recounts all the
circumstances of its tragic ending, the
brutal vengeance of the Canon, the flight of Heloise to Pallet, where their son, whom he
named Astrolabius, was born, the
secret wedding, the retirement of Heloise to the nunnery of Argenteuil, and his
abandonment of his academic career. He was at
the time a cleric in minor orders, and had naturally looked forward to a distinguished
career as an ecclesiastical teacher. After
his downfall, he retired to the Abbey of St. Denis, and, Heloise having taken the veil at
Argenteuil, he assumed the habit of a
Benedictine monk at the royal Abbey of St. Denis. He who had considered himself the only
surviving philosopher in the whole
world was willing to hide himself -- definitely, as he thought -- in monastic solitude.
But whatever dreams he may have had of
final peace in his monastic retreat were soon shattered. He quarrelled with the monks of
St. Denis, the occasion being his
irreverent criticism of the legend of their patron saint, and was sent to a branch
institution, a priory or cella, where, once more,
he soon attracted unfavourable attention by the spirit of the teaching which he gave in
philosophy and theology. More subtle
and more learned than ever, as a contemporary (Otto of Freising) describes him, he took
up the former quarrel with Anselm's
pupils. Through their influence, his orthodoxy, especially on the doctrine of the Holy
Trinity, was impeached, and he was
summoned to appear before a council at Soissons, in 1121, presided over by the papal
legate, Kuno, Bishop of Praneste.
While it is not easy to determine exactly what took place at the Council, it is clear
that there was no formal condemnation of
Abelard's doctrines, but that he was nevertheless condemned to recite the Athanasian
Creed, and to burn his book on the
Trinity. Besides, he was sentenced to imprisonment in the Abbey of St. Medard, at the
instance apparently, of the monks of St.
Denis, whose enmity, especially that of their Abbot Adam, was unrelenting. In his
despair, he fled to a desert place in the
neighbourhood of Troyes. Thither pupils soon began to flock, huts and tents for their
reception were built, and an oratory
erected, under the title The Paraclete, and there his former success as a teacher was
renewed.
After the death of Adam, Abbot of St. Denis, his successor, Suger, absolved Abelard from
censure, and thus restored him to
his rank as a monk. The Abbey of St. Gildas de Rhuys, near Vannes, on the coast of
Brittany, having lost its Abbot in 1125,
elected Abelard to fill his place. At the same time, the community of Argenteuil was
dispersed, and Heloise gladly accepted the
Oratory of the Paraclete, where she became Abbess. As Abbot of St. Gildas, Abelard had,
according to his own account, a
very troublesome time. The monks, considering him too strict, endeavoured in various ways
to rid themselves of his rule, and
even attempted to poison him. They finally drove him from the monastery. Retaining the
title of Abbot, he resided for some time
in the neighbourhood of Nantes and later (probably in 1136) resumed his career as teacher
at Paris and revived, to some
extent, the renown of the days when, twenty years earlier, he gathered all Europe to hear
his lectures. Among his pupils at this
time were Arnold of Brescia and John of Salisbury. Now begins the last act in the tragedy
of Abelard's life, in which St.
Bernard plays a conspicuous part. The monk of Clairvaux, the most powerful man in the
Church in those days, was alarmed at
the heterodoxy of Abelard's teaching, and questioned the Trinitarian doctrine contained
in Abelard's writings. There were
admonitions on the one side and defiances on the other; St. Bernard, having first warned
Abelard in private, proceeded to
denounce him to the bishops of France; Abelard, underestimating the ability and influence
of his adversary, requested a
meeting, or council, of bishops, before whom Bernard and he should discuss the points in
dispute. Accordingly, a council was
held at Sens (the metropolitan see to which Paris was then suffragan) in 1141. On the eve
of the council a meeting of bishops
was held, at which Bernard was present, but not Abelard, and in that meeting a number of
propositions were selected from
Abelard's writings, and condemned. When, on the following morning, these propositions
were read in solemn council, Abelard,
informed, so it seems, of the proceedings of the evening before, refused to defend
himself, declaring that he appealed to Rome.
Accordingly, the propositions were condemned, but Abelard was allowed his freedom. St.
Bernard now wrote to the members
of the Roman Curia, with the result that Abelard had proceeded only as far as Cluny on
his way to Rome when the decree of
Innocent II confirming the sentence of the Council of Sens reached him. The Venerable
Peter of Cluny now took up his case,
obtained from Rome a mitigation of the sentence reconciled him with St. Bernard, and gave
him honourable and friendly
hospitality at Cluny. There Abelard spent the last years of his life, and there at last
he found the peace which he had elsewhere
sought in vain. He donned the habit of the monks of Cluny and became a teacher in the
school of the monastery. He died at
Chalon-sur-Saone in 1142, and was buried at the Paraclete. In 1817 his remains and those
of Heloise were transferred to the
cemetery of Pere la Chaise, in Paris, where they now rest. For our knowledge of the life
of Abelard we rely chiefly on the
Story of My Calamities, an autobiography written as a letter to a friend, and evidently
intended for publication. To this may be
added the letters of Abelard and Heloise, which were also intended for circulation among
Abelard's friends. The Story was
written about the year 1130, and the letters during the following five or six years. In
both the personal element must of course,
be taken into account. Besides these we have very scanty material; a letter from Roscelin
to Abelard, a letter of Fulco of Deuil,
the chronicle of Otto of Freising, the letters of St. Bernard, and a few allusions in the
writings of John of Salisbury. Abelard's
philosophical works are Dialectica, a logical treatise consisting of four books (of which
the first is missing); Liber Divisionum
et Definitionum (edited by Cousin as a fifth book of the Dialectica); Glosses on
Porphyry, Boeius, and the Aristotelian
Categories; Glossulae in Porphyrium (hitherto unpublished except in a French paraphrase
by Remusat); the fragment De
Generibus et Speciebus, ascribed to Abelard by Cousin; a moral treatise Scito Teipsum,
seu Ethica, first published by Pez in
Thes. Anecd. Noviss. All of these, with the exception of the Glossulae and the Ethica,
are to be found in Cousin's
Ouvrages inedits d'Abelard (Paris, 1836). Abelard's theological works (published by
Cousin, Petri Abselardi Opera, in 2
vols., Paris, 1849-59, also by Migne, Patr. Lat., CLXXVIII) include Sic et Non,
consisting of scriptural and patristic
passages arranged for and against various theological opinions, without any attempt to
decide whether the affirmative or the
negative opinion is correct or orthodox; Tractatus de Unitate et Trinitate Divina, which
was condemned at the Council of Sens
(discovered and edited by Stolzle, Freiburg, 1891); Theologia Christiana, a second and
enlarged edition of the Tractatus
(first published by Durand and Martene Thes. Nov., 1717); Introductio in Theologiam'
(more correctly, Theologia), of
which the first part was published by Duchesne in 1616; Dialogus inter Philosophum,
Judaeum, et Christianum; Sententiae
Petri Abaelardi, otherwise called Epitomi Theologiae Christianae, which is seemingly a
compilation by Abelard's pupils (first
published by Rheinwald, Berlin, 1535); and several exegetical works hymns, sequences,
etc. In philosophy Abelard deserves
consideration primarily as a dialectician. For him, as for all the scholastic
philosophers before the thirteenth century,
philosophical inquiry meant almost exclusively the discussion and elucidation of the
problems suggested by the logical treatises
of Aristotle and the commentaries thereon, chiefly the commentaries of Porphyry and
Boetius. Perhaps his most important
contribution to philosophy and theology is the method which he developed in his Sic et
Non (Yea and Nay), a method
germinally contained in the teaching of his predecessors, and afterwards brought to more
definite form by Alexander of Hales
and St. Thomas Aquinas. It consisted in placing before the student the reasons pro and
contra, on the principle that truth is to
be attained only by a dialectical discussion of apparently contradictory arguments and
authorities. In the problem of Universals,
which occupied so much of the attention of dialecticians in those days, Abelard took a
position of uncompromising hostility to
the crude nominalism of Roscelin on the one side, and to the exaggerated realism of
William of Champeaux on the other. What,
precisely, was his own doctrine on the question is a matter which cannot with accuracy be
determined. However, from the
statements of his pupil, John of Salisbury, it is clear that Abelard's doctrine, while
expressed in terms of a modified Nominalism,
was very similar to the moderate Realism which began to be official in the schools about
half a century after Abelard's death. In
ethics Abelard laid such great stress on the morality of the intention as apparently to
do away with the objective distinction
between good and evil acts. It is not the physical action itself, he said, nor any
imaginary injury to God, that constitutes sin, but
rather the psychological element in the action, the intention of sinning, which is formal
contempt of God. With regard to the
relation between reason and revelation, between the sciences -- including philosophy --
and theology, Abelard incurred in his
own day the censure of mystic theologians like St. Bernard, whose tendency was to
disinherit reason in favour of contemplation
and ecstatic vision. And it is true that if the principles Reason aids Faith and Faith
aids Reason are to be taken as the
inspiration of scholastic theology, Abelard was constitutionally inclined to emphasize
the former, and not lay stress on the latter.
Besides, he adopted a tone, and employed a phraseology, when speaking of sacred subjects,
which gave offence, and rightly,
to the more conservative of his contemporaries. Still, Abelard had good precedent for his
use of dialectic in the elucidation of
the mysteries of faith; he was by no means an innovator in this respect; and though the
thirteenth century, the golden age of
scholasticism, knew little of Abelard, it took up his method, and with fearlessness equal
to his, though without any of his
flippancy or irreverence, gave full scope to reason in the effort to expound and defend
the mysteries of the Christian Faith. St.
Bernard sums up the charges against Abelard when he writes (Ep. cxcii) Cum de Trinitate
loquitur, sapit Arium; cum do gratia,
sapit Pelagium; cum de persona Christi, sapit Nestorium, and there is no doubt that on
these several heads Abelard wrote and
said many things which were open to objection from the point of view of orthodoxy. That
is to say, while combating the
opposite errors, he fell inadvertently into mistakes which he himself did not recognize
as Arianism, Pelagianism, and
Nestonanism, and which even his enemies could characterize merely as savouring of
Arianism, Pelagianism, and Nestorianism.
Abelard's influence on his immediate successors was not very great, owing partly to his
conflict with the ecclesiastical
authorities, and partly to his personal defects, more especially his vanity and pride,
which must have given the impression that he
valued truth less than victory. His influence on the philosophers and theologians of the
thirteenth century was, however, very
great. It was exercised chiefly through Peter Lombard, his pupil, and other framers of
the Sentences. Indeed, while one must
be careful to discount the exaggerated encomiums of Compayre, Cousin, and others, who
represent Abelard as the first
modern, the founder of the University of Paris, etc., one is justified in regarding him,
in spite of his faults of character and
mistakes of judgment, as an important contributor to scholastic method, an enlightened
opponent of obscurantism, and a
continuator of that revival of learning which occurred in the Carolingian age, and of
which whatever there is of science,
literature, and speculation in the early Middie Ages is the historical development.
. . .
WILLIAM TURNER. 
Bibliography
Jacques Maritain Center : Readings
Abelard
Abelard, Peter, dialectician, philosopher, and theologian, b. 1079; d. 1142. Peter
Abelard (also spelled Abeillard, Abailard,
etc., while the best MSS. have Abaelardus) was born in the little village of Pallet,
about ten miles east of Nantes in Brittany.
His father, Berengar, was lord of the village, his mother's name was Lucia; both
afterwards entered the monastic state. Peter,
the oldest of their children, was intended for a military career, but, as he himself
tells us, he abandoned Mars for Minerva, the
profession of arms for that of learning. Accordingly, at an early age, he left his
father's castle and sought instruction as a
wandering scholar at the schools of the most renowned teachers of those days. Among these
teachers was Roscelin the
Nominalist, at whose school at Locmenach, near Vannes, Abelard certainly spent some time
before he proceeded to Paris.
Although the University of Paris did not exist as a corporate institution until more than
half a century after Abelard's death, there
flourished at Paris in his time the Cathedral School, the School of Ste. Genevieve, and
that of St. Germain des Pre, the
forerunners of the university schools of the following century. The Cathedral School was
undoubtedly the most important of
these, and thither the young Abelard directed his steps in order to study dialectic under
the renowned master (scholasticus)
William of Champeaux. Soon, however, the youth from the province, for whom the prestige
of a great name was far from
awe-inspiring, not only ventured to object to the teaching of the Parisian master, but
attempted to set up as a rival teacher.
Finding that this was not an easy matter in Paris, he established his school first at
Melun and later at Corbeil. This was,
probably, in the year 1101. The next couple of years Abelard spent in his native place
almost cut off from France, as he says.
The reason of this enforced retreat from the dialectical fray was failing health. On
returning to Paris, he became once more a
pupil of William of Champeaux for the purpose of studying rhetoric. When William retired
to the monastery of St. Victor,
Abelard, who meantime had resumed his teaching at Melun, hastened to Paris to secure the
chair of the Cathedral School.
Having failed in this, he set up his school in Mt. Ste. Genevieve (1108). There and at
the Cathedral School, in which in 1113 he
finally succeeded in obtaining a chair, he enjoyed the greatest renown as a teacher of
rhetoric and dialectic. Before taking up
the duty of teaching theology at the Cathedral School, he went to Laon where he presented
himself to the venerable Anselm of
Laon as a student of theology. Soon, however, his petulant restiveness under restraint
once more asserted itself, and he was not
content until he had as completely discomfited the teacher of theology at Laon as he had
successfully harassed the teacher of
rhetoric and dialectic at Paris. Taking Abelard's own account of the incident, it is
impossible not to blame him for the temerity
which made him such enemies as Alberic and Lotulph, pupils of Anselm, who, later on,
appeared against Abelard. The
theological studies pursued by Abelard at Laon were what we would nowadays call the study
of exegesis.
There can be no doubt that Abelard's career as a teacher at Paris, from 1108 to 1118, was
an exceptionally brilliant one. In his
Story of My Calamities (Historia Calamitatum) he tells us how pupils flocked to him from
every country in Europe, a
statement which is more than corroborated by Ihe authority of his contemporaries. He was,
In fact, the idol of Paris; eloquent,
vivacious, handsome, possessed of an unusually rich voice, full of confidence in his own
power to please, he had, as he tells us,
the whole world at his feet. That Abelard was unduly conscious of these advantages is
admitted by his most ardent admirers;
indeed, in the Story of My Calamities, he confesses that at that period of his life he
was filled with vanity and pride. To these
faults he attributes his downfall, which was as swift and tragic as was everything,
seemingly, in his meteoric career. He tells us in
graphic language the tale which has become part of the classic literature of the
love-theme, how he fell in love with Heloise,
niece of Canon Fulbert; he spares us none of the details of the story, recounts all the
circumstances of its tragic ending, the
brutal vengeance of the Canon, the flight of Heloise to Pallet, where their son, whom he
named Astrolabius, was born, the
secret wedding, the retirement of Heloise to the nunnery of Argenteuil, and his
abandonment of his academic career. He was at
the time a cleric in minor orders, and had naturally looked forward to a distinguished
career as an ecclesiastical teacher. After
his downfall, he retired to the Abbey of St. Denis, and, Heloise having taken the veil at
Argenteuil, he assumed the habit of a
Benedictine monk at the royal Abbey of St. Denis. He who had considered himself the only
surviving philosopher in the whole
world was willing to hide himself -- definitely, as he thought -- in monastic solitude.
But whatever dreams he may have had of
final peace in his monastic retreat were soon shattered. He quarrelled with the monks of
St. Denis, the occasion being his
irreverent criticism of the legend of their patron saint, and was sent to a branch
institution, a priory or cella, where, once more,
he soon attracted unfavourable attention by the spirit of the teaching which he gave in
philosophy and theology. More subtle
and more learned than ever, as a contemporary (Otto of Freising) describes him, he took
up the former quarrel with Anselm's
pupils. Through their influence, his orthodoxy, especially on the doctrine of the Holy
Trinity, was impeached, and he was
summoned to appear before a council at Soissons, in 1121, presided over by the papal
legate, Kuno, Bishop of Praneste.
While it is not easy to determine exactly what took place at the Council, it is clear
that there was no formal condemnation of
Abelard's doctrines, but that he was nevertheless condemned to recite the Athanasian
Creed, and to burn his book on the
Trinity. Besides, he was sentenced to imprisonment in the Abbey of St. Medard, at the
instance apparently, of the monks of St.
Denis, whose enmity, especially that of their Abbot Adam, was unrelenting. In his
despair, he fled to a desert place in the
neighbourhood of Troyes. Thither pupils soon began to flock, huts and tents for their
reception were built, and an oratory
erected, under the title The Paraclete, and there his former success as a teacher was
renewed.
After the death of Adam, Abbot of St. Denis, his successor, Suger, absolved Abelard from
censure, and thus restored him to
his rank as a monk. The Abbey of St. Gildas de Rhuys, near Vannes, on the coast of
Brittany, having lost its Abbot in 1125,
elected Abelard to fill his place. At the same time, the community of Argenteuil was
dispersed, and Heloise gladly accepted the
Oratory of the Paraclete, where she became Abbess. As Abbot of St. Gildas, Abelard had,
according to his own account, a
very troublesome time. The monks, considering him too strict, endeavoured in various ways
to rid themselves of his rule, and
even attempted to poison him. They finally drove him from the monastery. Retaining the
title of Abbot, he resided for some time
in the neighbourhood of Nantes and later (probably in 1136) resumed his career as teacher
at Paris and revived, to some
extent, the renown of the days when, twenty years earlier, he gathered all Europe to hear
his lectures. Among his pupils at this
time were Arnold of Brescia and John of Salisbury. Now begins the last act in the tragedy
of Abelard's life, in which St.
Bernard plays a conspicuous part. The monk of Clairvaux, the most powerful man in the
Church in those days, was alarmed at
the heterodoxy of Abelard's teaching, and questioned the Trinitarian doctrine contained
in Abelard's writings. There were
admonitions on the one side and defiances on the other; St. Bernard, having first warned
Abelard in private, proceeded to
denounce him to the bishops of France; Abelard, underestimating the ability and influence
of his adversary, requested a
meeting, or council, of bishops, before whom Bernard and he should discuss the points in
dispute. Accordingly, a council was
held at Sens (the metropolitan see to which Paris was then suffragan) in 1141. On the eve
of the council a meeting of bishops
was held, at which Bernard was present, but not Abelard, and in that meeting a number of
propositions were selected from
Abelard's writings, and condemned. When, on the following morning, these propositions
were read in solemn council, Abelard,
informed, so it seems, of the proceedings of the evening before, refused to defend
himself, declaring that he appealed to Rome.
Accordingly, the propositions were condemned, but Abelard was allowed his freedom. St.
Bernard now wrote to the members
of the Roman Curia, with the result that Abelard had proceeded only as far as Cluny on
his way to Rome when the decree of
Innocent II confirming the sentence of the Council of Sens reached him. The Venerable
Peter of Cluny now took up his case,
obtained from Rome a mitigation of the sentence reconciled him with St. Bernard, and gave
him honourable and friendly
hospitality at Cluny. There Abelard spent the last years of his life, and there at last
he found the peace which he had elsewhere
sought in vain. He donned the habit of the monks of Cluny and became a teacher in the
school of the monastery. He died at
Chalon-sur-Saone in 1142, and was buried at the Paraclete. In 1817 his remains and those
of Heloise were transferred to the
cemetery of Pere la Chaise, in Paris, where they now rest. For our knowledge of the life
of Abelard we rely chiefly on the
Story of My Calamities, an autobiography written as a letter to a friend, and evidently
intended for publication. To this may be
added the letters of Abelard and Heloise, which were also intended for circulation among
Abelard's friends. The Story was
written about the year 1130, and the letters during the following five or six years. In
both the personal element must of course,
be taken into account. Besides these we have very scanty material; a letter from Roscelin
to Abelard, a letter of Fulco of Deuil,
the chronicle of Otto of Freising, the letters of St. Bernard, and a few allusions in the
writings of John of Salisbury. Abelard's
philosophical works are Dialectica, a logical treatise consisting of four books (of which
the first is missing); Liber Divisionum
et Definitionum (edited by Cousin as a fifth book of the Dialectica); Glosses on
Porphyry, Boeius, and the Aristotelian
Categories; Glossulae in Porphyrium (hitherto unpublished except in a French paraphrase
by Remusat); the fragment De
Generibus et Speciebus, ascribed to Abelard by Cousin; a moral treatise Scito Teipsum,
seu Ethica, first published by Pez in
Thes. Anecd. Noviss. All of these, with the exception of the Glossulae and the Ethica,
are to be found in Cousin's
Ouvrages inedits d'Abelard (Paris, 1836). Abelard's theological works (published by
Cousin, Petri Abselardi Opera, in 2
vols., Paris, 1849-59, also by Migne, Patr. Lat., CLXXVIII) include Sic et Non,
consisting of scriptural and patristic
passages arranged for and against various theological opinions, without any attempt to
decide whether the affirmative or the
negative opinion is correct or orthodox; Tractatus de Unitate et Trinitate Divina, which
was condemned at the Council of Sens
(discovered and edited by Stolzle, Freiburg, 1891); Theologia Christiana, a second and
enlarged edition of the Tractatus
(first published by Durand and Martene Thes. Nov., 1717); Introductio in Theologiam'
(more correctly, Theologia), of
which the first part was published by Duchesne in 1616; Dialogus inter Philosophum,
Judaeum, et Christianum; Sententiae
Petri Abaelardi, otherwise called Epitomi Theologiae Christianae, which is seemingly a
compilation by Abelard's pupils (first
published by Rheinwald, Berlin, 1535); and several exegetical works hymns, sequences,
etc. In philosophy Abelard deserves
consideration primarily as a dialectician. For him, as for all the scholastic
philosophers before the thirteenth century,
philosophical inquiry meant almost exclusively the discussion and elucidation of the
problems suggested by the logical treatises
of Aristotle and the commentaries thereon, chiefly the commentaries of Porphyry and
Boetius. Perhaps his most important
contribution to philosophy and theology is the method which he developed in his Sic et
Non (Yea and Nay), a method
germinally contained in the teaching of his predecessors, and afterwards brought to more
definite form by Alexander of Hales
and St. Thomas Aquinas. It consisted in placing before the student the reasons pro and
contra, on the principle that truth is to
be attained only by a dialectical discussion of apparently contradictory arguments and
authorities. In the problem of Universals,
which occupied so much of the attention of dialecticians in those days, Abelard took a
position of uncompromising hostility to
the crude nominalism of Roscelin on the one side, and to the exaggerated realism of
William of Champeaux on the other. What,
precisely, was his own doctrine on the question is a matter which cannot with accuracy be
determined. However, from the
statements of his pupil, John of Salisbury, it is clear that Abelard's doctrine, while
expressed in terms of a modified Nominalism,
was very similar to the moderate Realism which began to be official in the schools about
half a century after Abelard's death. In
ethics Abelard laid such great stress on the morality of the intention as apparently to
do away with the objective distinction
between good and evil acts. It is not the physical action itself, he said, nor any
imaginary injury to God, that constitutes sin, but
rather the psychological element in the action, the intention of sinning, which is formal
contempt of God. With regard to the
relation between reason and revelation, between the sciences -- including philosophy --
and theology, Abelard incurred in his
own day the censure of mystic theologians like St. Bernard, whose tendency was to
disinherit reason in favour of contemplation
and ecstatic vision. And it is true that if the principles Reason aids Faith and Faith
aids Reason are to be taken as the
inspiration of scholastic theology, Abelard was constitutionally inclined to emphasize
the former, and not lay stress on the latter.
Besides, he adopted a tone, and employed a phraseology, when speaking of sacred subjects,
which gave offence, and rightly,
to the more conservative of his contemporaries. Still, Abelard had good precedent for his
use of dialectic in the elucidation of
the mysteries of faith; he was by no means an innovator in this respect; and though the
thirteenth century, the golden age of
scholasticism, knew little of Abelard, it took up his method, and with fearlessness equal
to his, though without any of his
flippancy or irreverence, gave full scope to reason in the effort to expound and defend
the mysteries of the Christian Faith. St.
Bernard sums up the charges against Abelard when he writes (Ep. cxcii) Cum de Trinitate
loquitur, sapit Arium; cum do gratia,
sapit Pelagium; cum de persona Christi, sapit Nestorium, and there is no doubt that on
these several heads Abelard wrote and
said many things which were open to objection from the point of view of orthodoxy. That
is to say, while combating the
opposite errors, he fell inadvertently into mistakes which he himself did not recognize
as Arianism, Pelagianism, and
Nestonanism, and which even his enemies could characterize merely as savouring of
Arianism, Pelagianism, and Nestorianism.
Abelard's influence on his immediate successors was not very great, owing partly to his
conflict with the ecclesiastical
authorities, and partly to his personal defects, more especially his vanity and pride,
which must have given the impression that he
valued truth less than victory. His influence on the philosophers and theologians of the
thirteenth century was, however, very
great. It was exercised chiefly through Peter Lombard, his pupil, and other framers of
the Sentences. Indeed, while one must
be careful to discount the exaggerated encomiums of Compayre, Cousin, and others, who
represent Abelard as the first
modern, the founder of the University of Paris, etc., one is justified in regarding him,
in spite of his faults of character and
mistakes of judgment, as an important contributor to scholastic method, an enlightened
opponent of obscurantism, and a
continuator of that revival of learning which occurred in the Carolingian age, and of
which whatever there is of science,
literature, and speculation in the early Middie Ages is the historical development.
. . .
WILLIAM TURNER.