ABEL, VASILIEV. — Russian monk (born Basilio Vasiliev), b. 1757 in Akulov, in the government of Moscow, d. 1841 in the Spasso-Evfimiev monastery. He posed as a mystic and prophet, which won him many followers, but ultimately brought him bitter disappointments. It is said that, having predicted the death of Catherine II, she had him shut up in a fortress. Paul I wished to free him, but after hearing him, sent him back to prison. Alexander I released him, and Nicholas I assigned him the Spasso-Evfimiev monastery as his residence, where he died. A. left a series of writings in which the narration of his adventures is accompanied by mystical commentaries, akin to Masonic literature. We cite: *Vita e prove di P. Abel*; *Discorsi sull'Essere*; *Ciò che è l'essenza divina*; *Libro primo sull'esistenza del monaco Abel*; etc.
ABELARD (Abaelardus, Abailardus), Peter — Philosopher and theologian.
I. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Born in 1079 at Pallet (Palatium), a village in Lower Brittany, about 20 km east of Nantes, d. 21 Apr. 1142 in the monastery of Saint-Marcel-sur-Saône. From his father Berengar, who had spent some years with books before taking up a military career, he inherited a lively love of letters, and, very young, following the custom of the time, he devoted himself to attending the schools of the most celebrated masters of dialectic.At that time the controversy over the problem of universals was raging, a specifically twelfth-century philosophical issue, and A. had the good fortune to have as teachers the leaders of the two rival schools: Roscellin (nominalist) and William of Champeaux (realist). The young Breton soon showed a subtle and prodigiously facile mind in learning the arts of the trivium and quadrivium, a proud and exuberant temperament, and a fervent passion for intellectual battles.
After traveling through various provinces of France, he settled in Paris, in the school of the cathedral, under the discipline of William of Champeaux. But his restless and presumptuous spirit led him to criticize his master’s teaching and thus to incur his enmity and that of many fellow students. Before he was twenty-three, he opened his own school at Melun, the royal residence, which he later moved to Corbeil to be nearer the capital. But exhaustion, brought on by immoderate study, forced him to return to his province and obliged him, for several years, to rest.
Having recovered his health, he went back to Paris to study rhetoric under the same William. There he resumed his struggle against his professor and, as he himself claims, forced him to retract and abandon his position on the question of universals (*Historia calamitatum*: PL 178, 119). This capitulation ruined the reputation of the old master, who had a glorious past, and made the young professor famous; he soon founded a school outside the city walls, on the heights of Sainte-Geneviève, which quickly enjoyed great success.
Having defeated his master in dialectic and rhetoric, A. sought laurels in sacred science as well and went to Laon, to the theological school of the illustrious Anselm. He found this teacher inferior to his reputation, weak in reasoning: “He kindled a fire, and instead of lighting up the house, filled it with smoke. A tree that to those looking from afar appeared all a pomp of leaves, but to those who approached to examine it closely proved barren” (*ibid.*, 123). He tried to subject Anselm to the same fate as William and demanded to hold some lectures on Ezekiel in his school. But the protests and hostility of Anselm were so great that he had to leave Laon.
He returned again to Paris, where he obtained the direction of the school of Notre-Dame and taught philosophy and theology there. Among the students who flocked to him from all parts of France and Europe were counted 19 cardinals, more than 50 future bishops, and one (Celestine II) who reached the papacy. Even the tribune Arnold of Brescia attended his lectures.
But precisely during the period of his teaching at Notre-Dame, the love affair with Heloise occurred, and the bitter revenge taken by Canon Fulbert, her uncle. The scandal that arose forced him to retire to the abbey of Saint-Denis, while Heloise took the veil in the monastery of Argenteuil. The two did not completely sever their relations, but the well-known correspondence they were later said to have exchanged, according to the latest critical investigations, turns out to be a literary fiction of the restless master. His monastic life did not change his character, and, at the invitation of his students, he resumed his lectures and philosophical battles.
He had a violent polemic with Roscellin (*Epist.*, 10 and 15: PL 178, 356-72) and was struck by a condemnation of the Council of Soissons, on account of his treatise *De unitate et trinitate divina* (1121). Confined, as punishment, in the convent of Saint-Médard, he was freed after a few days by the cardinal legate Cono of Praeneste, who had presided over the council, and sent back to Saint-Denis. Later we find him in the solitude of the Paraclete, near Troyes. But the desert, where he had sought refuge, soon became a much-frequented school. In 1125 he was elected abbot of Saint-Gildas in Rhuys in Brittany, and later (1129) returned to the Paraclete, already ceded to Heloise and her companions, who had been driven out of Argenteuil by Abbot Suger. There he devoted himself to their care. John of Salisbury shows him again in 1136 in the chair on the hill of Sainte-Geneviève, engaged in battling against the sect of the Cornifians. These were, however, the last triumphs of his teaching career: a severe storm was gathering over his head. Once more accused of heresy, this time his adversary was St. Bernard, and he was summoned to the Council of Sens (June 1141). A. wished to debate, but was invited to confess the incriminated propositions and recant. He preferred to appeal to the Pope and set out for Rome, where he counted powerful friends. But learning that Innocent II had confirmed the sentence and condemnation, he stopped at Cluny. There he was kindly received by Peter the Venerable, who succeeded in reconciling him with St. Bernard, removing from his head the effects of the papal condemnation, and inspiring in him a sincerely Catholic recantation.
There A. piously died. His remains were transported by the abbot of Cluny himself to the Paraclete. Today the mortal remains of A. and Heloise, transferred to Père-Lachaise in Paris in 1817, rest together in a single tomb.
II. HIS WORKS: 1. Philosophical works: it has become customary, following Geyer, to distinguish three groups of A.’s logical writings: a) Literal glosses on isolated treatises, which the author called *Introductiones parvulorum*. Cousin collected and published some from various manuscripts, but not all have been honored with print. They date from before 1121.
b) Coordinated expositions of the whole of logic, composed between 1113 and 1120. This systematic logic has come down to us in two forms, according to the two *incipits*: *Ingredientibus* and *Nostrorum petitioni sociorum*. Geyer has published the Glosses on Porphyry, as well as the Glosses on the Categories and the *Glossulae super Porphyrium*.
c) The *Dialectica*, a complete, regular, and methodical treatise on logic, personal and not a commentary on the thought of others. It mentions William of Champeaux and Roscellin, who died in 1121, and this suggests that the work was written after that year, since the author never names these masters in other works while they were still alive. The treatise was published in large part by Cousin.
2. Theological Works: *De unitate et trinitate divina*, a work condemned by the Council of Soissons, surviving in two versions
*Theologia christiana*, a second edition revised and expanded from the previous treatise. This is A.’s rebuttal against the council. — *Theologia*, a reworking of the second treatise. We possess the first part under the spurious title *Introductio ad theologiam*. — *Sic et non*, a compilation of texts, as the author states, seemingly contradictory, drawn from Scripture and the Fathers, to resolve numerous theological problems. We have of this work German editions reported by Migne and the edition by Cousin. L. Tosti, using a manuscript from Monte Cassino, added new and important fragments.3. Exegetical and Apologetic Works: the *Expositio in Hexaemeron* and the *Commentariorum super s. Pauli epistolam ad Romanos libri quinque*. — *Scito te ipsum*, a treatise on morals more philosophical than religious. — *Dialogus inter philosophum et christianum*, an original apology of Christianity. — *Sermones*, ascetical conferences, largely addressed to the nuns of Paraclete.
We may also cite: the *Historia calamitatum*, and the *Letters*, of interest for A.’s biography; the *Problemata*; the *Apologia* or *Apologeticus*, a justificatory memoir composed after the condemnation of the Council of Sens to be sent to Rome; and finally the *Carmen ad Astrolabium*, published in full by Barthélemy Hauréau in *Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque nationale*, XXXIV, 2nd part, Paris 1893, pp. 153 ff. Lastly, the *Hymni*.
A.’s contribution to both philosophy and scholastic theology is significant. In the strictly philosophical sphere, his name is linked to the solution of the problem of universals. No one better than he understood and assimilated at the beginning of the 12th century Aristotle’s doctrine of knowledge. He distinguishes between sense perception and imaginative perception, common to men and animals, and abstractive perception, proper to rational creatures. The content of the latter is furnished by the senses and constitutes the necessary process by which the intellect grasps the common likeness of individuals, that is, the very nature of beings and objects. The universal is the result of this act of abstraction. It is neither a thing (res), nor a word (vox), but a concept (sermo). A. is the first in the Middle Ages clearly to recognize the ideal value of universals.
A. was also one of the principal moralists of his time. *Scito te ipsum* is a treatise on morals not lacking in originality. It enunciates two important principles: that intention can render our actions good or bad, and that error in judgment diminishes guilt.
Nor are his merits on the theological terrain any less. He was one of the forerunners of the doctrinal movement that brought dialectic into the very heart of the highest theological speculation. Errors, even serious ones, are not lacking in his works, but he certainly made a notable contribution to the science of the Middle Ages by proclaiming the distinction between philosophy and theology. He also refined the method of instruction in sacred science. The treatise *Sic et non*, in which contradictory testimonies drawn from Scripture and the Fathers are assembled, is of historical importance in this regard. It is the didactic process of adducing arguments for and then against, and finally the resolution. The process developed and took on a more definite form in Alexander of Hales and St. Thomas Aquinas.
Nor should we exaggerate the rationalism of this strong thinker: between faith and reason he establishes a close bond. “I do not wish to be a philosopher,” he wrote to Heloise, “if I must rebel against Paul, nor to become Aristotle, if I must separate myself from Christ” (*Ep.*, 17: PL 178, 375).
The most recent historians of medieval thought tend to rehabilitate him. More than in principles that today seem unassailable, he sometimes failed in their use and application (cf. M. Grabmann, *Storia della teologia cattolica*, Italian trans., Milan 1932, pp. 41 ff.).