Peter Abelard
21 April 1142 The "heavenly birthday" of Anselm
is also that of Peter Abelard, a brilliant lecturer, debater,
and philosopher of the following generation. Anselm and Abelard
are often regarded as two poles in Christian understanding of
the Atonement (see articles cited in the entry for Anselm). (Note:
In books and articles about Abelard, you may find references to
his dealings, not always friendly, with a scholar named Anselm
of Laon. This man should not be confused with Anselm of Canterbury.) Pierre du Pallet (who while at college took
the nickname "Abelard" as his surname) was born in 1079
at Palets, a Breton town near Nantes, of parents who belonged
to the minor nobility. His lifetime coincides with the great era
of Gothic cathedral-building in France and elsewhere, and with
the rise of the great medieval universities at Paris, Chartres,
Bologna, Oxford, and elsewhere. Abelard from his earliest years
showed an aptitude and inclination for an academic career, and
as a young man entered the University of Paris, where he rapidly
acquired a reputation for intelligence, wit, debating skill, arrogance,
and embarrassing his professors. In his day, theologians tended to prove their
points chiefly by quoting statements from the Church Fathers.
Abelard produced a book called Sic Et Non ("Yes and
No"), in which he took numerous theological issues and produced
quotations from the Fathers on one side, set next to quotations
from the Fathers on the other side. He then proceeded to reconcile
the contradictions, pointing out that language is ambiguous and
depends on context, and that statements that appear to answer
the same question "Yes" and "No" may on closer
examination turn out to be answering different questions. The great philosophical dispute of the day
concerned Universals. We say that Citation, Secretariat, and Man-o-War,
are all horses. One group of philosophers (then called "Realists"
but now called "Idealists", and taking their cue from
Plato) said that there is an objectively existing Something that
the aforesaid C, S, and MoW all have in common: namely, their
equine nature. A second group of philosophers (then called "Nominalists"
but now called "Realists", and taking their cue from
Aristotle) said that it was silly to assert the existence of anything
here except the concrete individual particular objects called
C, S, and MoW, and the name "horse" which we agree to
give to them all. Hence the competing slogans, "Universals
are Real" and "Universals are Names." When Abelard
appeared on the scene, it was dominated by Realists. He took the
Nominalist side, with modifications that enabled him to sidestep
the standard realist objections, and his skill in debate won him
many admirers. (He tells us himself that he mopped up the floor
with his opponents, and silenced or convinced all his professors,
but that may be a teeny bit exaggerated.) For background material,
the reader is referred to Chapters 14 to 16 of Henry Adams' book
Mont-Saint-Michel And Chartres. For evidence that the question
can still rouse passions today, the reader is referred to Ayn
Rand's An Introduction To Objectivist Epistemology, available
in paperback at your local bookstore or library. For many years he found his chief joy in philosophical
analysis and debate, but then personal considerations intervened.
He saw a young girl named Heloise, and fell in love with her.
He managed to get himself accepted as a boarder at the house of
her uncle, who was the guardian of Heloise and a great admirer
of Abelard. Abelard and Heloise became physically intimate. Now
Abelard was not a priest or monk or otherwise sworn to celibacy.
However, he was a canon of Notre Dame Cathedral, a necessary part
of his being a lecturer at the Cathedral School, and this meant
that if he got married he would lose his job and his professorship.
When Heloise became pregnant, Abelard wanted to marry her, but
she argued that he was a great philosopher, destined to change
the intellectual history of the world, and that his work was far
too important to be imperilled by the consequences of marriage.
Eventually, they got married, but secretly. (Abelard, characteristically,
named the baby "Astrolabe".) There was now a problem.
In order to keep the uncle happy, Abelard had to tell him that
they were married. In order to keep his job, Abelard had to tell
everyone else that they were not. Eventually, the uncle decided
that Abelard was lying to him and had ruined his niece and was
preparing to abandon her. In rage, he hired a band of cutthroats
to seize Abelard and castrate him, which they did. Heloise then
went into a convent and became a nun, and eventually the abbess,
and lived a most exemplary and chaste life thereafter, although
she did continue to exchange love letters with Abelard. Abelard
for his part determined to become a monk and entered the Abbey
of St. Denis, but he and his fellow monks did not agree; and after
a while parted by mutual consent. Abelard went back to lecturing.
(Astrolabe was adopted by Abelard's sister.) He wrote a book on the Trinity, called Theologia,
and it aroused considerable controversy, although his opponents
had trouble finding specific statements in it that they could
prove to be heretical. The problems, as nearly as I can determine
were two. (1) The application of his Nominalist views to the doctrine
of the Trinity seemed to imply that the Three Persons of the Trinity
had a real existence, but that the One God was only an abstraction.
And this his opponents found heretical. (2) His book, and his
general attitude, did not seem to allow for any mystery in the
Trinity or in the nature of God. He seemed to be saying that if
only one was a sufficiently clever fellow, such as Abelard, one
could quite easily arrive at a complete understanding of every
aspect of God's nature, just by a little thoughtful analysis.
And this his opponents found cheeky. His opponents arranged for a council at Soissons,
chaired by the Papal Legate, at which his book was to be examined.
Given Abelard's reputation as a cunning debater who could tie
anyone in knots, his opponents were unwilling to debate him straightforwardly,
and finally persuaded the Legate that the mere fact that Abelard
had been circulating the book to the general public without first
subjecting it to peer review was a sufficient reason to condemn
the book. The book was accordingly burned, and Abelard left in
disgrace. He was sent to the Abbey of St. Medard, but then back
to his own Abbey of St. Denis. Here he got into trouble by pointing
out a passage in the writings of Bede which questioned the tradition
that St Denis (or Dionysius) of Paris, for whom the Abbey was
named, was identical with the author of certain very highly regarded
works of mystical theology (On The Divine Names and other
works), and also with the Athenian convert of the Apostle Paul
who is mentioned in Acts 17:34. This created such an uproar that
he left the monastery and built himself a private chapel, at which
he soon began to give lectures and acquired pupils. Again he got
into trouble, since he had dedicated the chapel to the Comforter
("PARACLETE", see John 14:16,26), and it was objected
that there was no precedent for dedicating a chapel to the Holy
Ghost. He replied, with typical overkill, that in the first place
there was nothing wrong with dedicating a chapel to the Holy Ghost,
and in the second place, when he said "Comforter" he
was referring to Christ, that the title of PARACLETE is not exclusive
to the Third Person of the Trinity, since Jesus expressly calls
Him "another Conforter." He was offered a position as head of the monastery
of Saint-Gildas-de-Rhuys, in Brittany, and he took it. But it
turned out that the monks had expected that he would be very lax
in enforcing the monastic rules, and he was instead quite strict.
So they attempted to poison him, and he left. Meanwhile, the convent
where Heloise was prioress had lost its lease, so Abelard went
back to his private chapel and invited Heloise and her nuns to
join him there. Some persons thought this arrangement suspicious,
but he argued that his status as a eunuch placed him above suspicion.
A few years later we find him out of retirement and lecturing
again. But there was fresh trouble ahead. Until now,
Abelard had had the friendship and protection of Suger, Abbot
of Saint Denis, and of the Pope and of the King of France (Louis
VI). However, in 1137 the King died, and the monk Bernard of Clairvaux
had become perhaps more influential than the Pope. And Bernard
had no doubt that Abelard was totally wrong and a danger to the
faith. He had written Sic Et Non, a book clearly intended
to make the Fathers look as if they did not know how to express
themselves clearly. He had written a book on the Trinity that
smacked of tritheism. He had shown himself most deceitful and
untrustworthy in the matter of Heloise. And, above all, he had
written a book called Expositio in Epistolam ad Romanos
("Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans"), in which
he had expressed views on the Atonement which seemed to Bernard
to strike at the roots of the Christian faith. Anselm of Canterbury,
a little over a generation earlier, had written that Christ came
to offer a payment or satisfaction for their sins by suffering
and dying in their place. Abelard, on the other hand, wrote that
Christ came to win men's hearts by an example of reconciling love.
Bernard was convinced that this was to deny the objective efficacy
of the Atonement, and thus to deny the Atonement altogether. Abelard was summoned to the Council of Sens
in 1141, expecting to debate the matter with Bernard, only to
find that the Council had already decided to condemn him and would
not even permit him to speak in his own defense. He was commanded
to write no more, and his books were burned. He undertook to journey
to Rome and present his case there. On the way, he collapsed and
took refuge at the Abbey of Cluny, where he remained under the
protection of Peter the Venerable, one of the few men of that
day who could stand up to Bernard of Clairvaux, to whom in fact
he had once written: "You perform all the difficult religious
duties; you fast, you watch, you suffer; but you will not endure
the easy ones--you do not love." Abbot Peter persuaded Abelard
to give up the struggle, and to leave the future of theology to
the theologians of the future. Abelard remained at Cluny for a
while and then was brought by friends to the priory of St. Marcel
(a daughter house of Cluny), where he died 21 April 1142. The Church has never quite known what to make
of Abelard. He was, in both senses, a loose can(n)on. He was a
man of spectacular gifts, and conspicuous sins. He fell into the
sin of fornication. He was severely punished for it (deprived
of the means whereby he had committed it) and he repented. He
fell into the far more serious sin of intellectual pride, delighting
in using his tongue as a weapon, a sword with which to skewer
others and leave them wriggling helplessly. He was severely punished
for it (forcibly silenced, deprived of the means whereby he had
committed it) and he repented. His speculations have made many
thoughtful Christians wary, uncertain where they might lead, and
thinking them likely to lead to an explaining away of the fundamentals
of the Christian faith. On the other hand, they have made many
thoughtful Christians grateful to him for giving them a deeper
understanding of, and firmer belief in, the fundamentals of the
Christian faith. His name does not appear on any Church Calendar
that I know of. Perhaps that is a decision that ought to be reconsidered. A great deal of Abelard's writing has been
preserved, including not only his formal treatises on logic and
theology, but also many sermons, poems, and letters, including
his love letters to Heloise and hers to him. written by James Kiefer Prayer Lord God of truth and love, who called Peter
Abelard to your service, and endowed him with many excellent gifts:
grant that we may seek diligently for the truth in our several
callings, and may learn to love the truth more than our own cleverness.
When we are wrong, grant that we may accept correction from others
gladly and without resentment. When others are wrong and will
hear us, grant us the grace to guide them gently, without gloating
or patronizing or officiousness. When they are wrong and will
not hear us, grant us the most precious gift of silence. Grant
us fairness and honesty, justice and respect, in our dealings
with all persons, and especially with those whom we love, and
those who love us. Preserve us from using them as means rather
than respecting them as ends. We are taught by Our Lord Jesus
Christ that he, being lifted up, will draw all men unto himself.
Grant that we, beholding his torn and bleeding hands stretched
out to us in love, may find our hard hearts softened, and our
stubborn pride brought low, and our rebellious wills tamed, by
his gracious invitation; and that his love for us may call forth
in us an answering love for him, who lives and reigns with you
and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.