Letters187 Letter CLXXXVII. To call together the bishops of the Archdiocese of Sens against Peter Abaelard.x (A.D. 1140)

He urges the Bishops to energetic action in the cause of religion against Abaelard.

in a lonely part of the Diocese of Troyes, where he built an oratory, which he dedicated first to the Holy Trinity, and afterwards to the Paraclete. But not even here was quiet allowed him. The monks of S. Gildas, in Brittany, in the Diocese of Vannes, summoned him to be their Abbot, and he found them, as he says in his History of His Calamities, "though Christians and monks, harsher and worse than heathen." He then returned to his oratory of the Paraclete, and handed it over to He'loise, with her sisters, who had been driven from the monastery of Argenteuil by Suger. Abbot of S. Denys, who claimed it for the Abbey under an old charter, A.D. 1127. He continued his perverse writings and teaching, and more now began to discuss his writings, especially William, Abbot of S. Thierry, who wrote a refutation of some heads of his errors, and sent his refutation to Geoffrey, Bishop of Chartres, and Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, to stir them up to avenge the wrong done to their faith. (See Letters 326 and 327.) But Abaelard, indignant at being branded as a heretic, challenged S. Bernard, as the author of the charge, to a public encounter at a Council held at Sens, A.D. 1140. S. Bernard went to the Council, though against his will. Impious doctrines of Abaelard were quoted from his writings, which he was bidden to deny if they were not his opinions, to abjure if they were. But he became confused, and unable to speak, as Geoffrey of Auxerre relates in his Commentary on the Apocalypse, or he was afraid of popular violence, as Otto of Frisingen says, or he thought it was safer for him to plead his cause at Rome, as S. Bernard says, because he had some Cardinals and clergy amongst his disciples, and so he appealed to the Roman Curia. The Fathers of the Council, none the less, proceeded to condemn his errors, and sent a list of them to Innocent, and S. Bernard wrote various Letters, both in his own name and in that of the Fathers, to Innocent and the Cardinals. Amongst Abaelard's works there are extant the heads of 17 errors which the Synod transmitted to the Pope; in the Letter of S. Bernard (No. 190) and in that of William of S. Thierry we have nearly 390. Innocent, on the receipt of the Synodal Letter, immediately wrote back the one numbered 194 to the Fathers of the Council, condemning the errors; and he added another, giving sentence against Abaelard in these words:—"INNOCENT, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his venerable Brothers SAMSON, Archbishop of Rheims, HENRY, Archbishop of Sens, and to his beloved son in Christ, BERNARD, Abbot of Clairvaux, health and Apostolic benediction:—" By these presents we command you, brethren, to cause Peter Abaelard and Arnold of Brescia, perverse manufacturers of dogma, and impugners of the Catholic faith, to be imprisoned separately in houses of religion wherever it may seem best to you, and to cause their books to be burnt wherever they may be found.

'' Given at the Lateran, xviii. Kal. Aug."

On this Letter was written: "Show this transcript to no one till this Letter shall have been presented to the Archbishops in the assembly at Paris." So Abaelard, finding that he had been condemned at Rome, desisted from his appeal on the advice of Peter, Abbot of Cluny, by whom he was kindly received into the monastery. Afterwards, by Peter's intervention, he was reconciled with S. Bernard, and then, with Innocent and the Church; and having spent two years at Cluny with great submission, he died, A.D. 1142, in the (>3rd year of his age, in the monastery of S. Marcellus, of Chalons-sur-Saone, whither he had been sent by Peter to be cured of a disease that he was suffering from. Peter the Venerable, in a Letter to He'loise(No. 21, Book iv.), recounts the eminent virtues that he displayed in this last part of his life. Abaelard has his too partial supporters, who go so far as to say that he was innocent of all error. Firstly, they state that Bernard fought against shadows; secondly, they overturn the authority of the Council of Soissons; and, thirdly, they reverse the verdict of the Roman Court given against Abaelard. A brief answer must be made to these three counts.

1. Against Bernard there is first of all set the authority of Otto of Frisingen, who, although he held Bernard in great veneration as his own Abbot, that is to say, as the head of his order, yet writes that he, " because of his zeal for the Christian religion was somewhat of a fanatic, and from his habitual meekness was credulous; so that from the first he detested those teachers who might put too much reliance on human reason and worldly wisdom, and from the second he was ready to lend a favourable ear to any account, however much against those teachers." Otto, indeed, says this in De Gestis Frederici (lib. i. c. 47), but it is in connection with Gilbert de la Porree; it is an argument, however in favour of Abaelard. But Radevicus testifies, in the same work (lib. ii. c. u), that Otto, being too partial to Gilbert, declared, on his death-bed, that if he had said anything with regard to his sentence which could offend anyone, he would wish it corrected. This must be taken, therefore, as a retractation. Further, Otto himself, in what follows, says clearly enough what he thought of Abaelard. He says: " From his early years he was devoted to the study of letters, and to other elegant pursuits; but he was so arrogant, and had such confidence in his own abilities, that he would scarcely deign to descend from his intellectual height to listen to teachers." And again: " Holding the meaning of words and names in their natural sense, he applied them incautiously in theology. Wherefore, in writing and teaching about the Holy Trinity, he over-refined about the Three Persons, and used inapt illustrations." Add to this that Abaelard, on Otto's own confession, was adjudged a Sabellian heretic at the Council of Soissons. So much for the authority of Otto against Bernard. Then, in the second place, the testimony of Peter the Venerable is brought forward in Abaelard's favour, who, in the Letter to Heloise already referred to, says of him: *' Germanus was not more humble, nor Martin himself more poor." Peter of Cluny is here speaking of those last days which Abaelard spent at Cluny, and truly enough. But was Bernard attacking his future merits? And can he, therefore, be said to have been fighting against shadows? The Chronicle of Cluny, speaking of Peter the Venerable, says>ell: " Abaelard, whose name was Peter, was recalled from his errors by Peter the Venerable, our Abbot, and by Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, and abjured what he had held from want of faith against the faith, and became a Cluniac monk. And then his thoughts, words, and deeds were always divine;... and, as is said of Gregory the Great, no moment passed that he was not praying, or reading, or writing, or dictating. Wherefore Peter the Venerable carefully commending him," &c. Many other remarks of this kind are quoted, extolling either the disposition, or the doctrine, or the excellent death of Abaelard, as though anyone of these affected Bernard.

Ii. A want of power or jurisdiction is then alleged against the Synod of Soissons, because neither the Archbishop of Sens nor of Rheims, who were present, had any jurisdiction over Abaelard, as Abbot of S. Gildas, in the Diocese of Vannes, but only the Metropolitan of Tours, who was absent. But having returned twelve years before to the oratory of the Paraclete, which was in the Diocese of Troyes, he was under the Archbishop of Sens. In the next place, he had as judges men whom he himself had chosen, as Bernard says, in Letter 191, written in the name of the Council to Innocent. " He appealed," he says, " from the place and the judges that he himself had chosen to the Apostolic See." Neither did Bernard, as some mistakenly say, call this Synod against Abaelard, but rather Abaelard forced Bernard to it against his will, as is plainly stated in Letters 187 and 189; moreover, Geoffrey of Auxerre, a former disciple of Abaelard, says in his Commentary on the Apocalypse: " Abaelard demanded of the Metropolitan of Sens that a great Council should as early as possible be summoned in his province, because the Abbot of Clairvaux was secretly bringing charges against his books. He said that he was ready to defend his writings in public, and asked that the aforesaid Abbot should be summoned to the Council that people might hear what he had to say." He was then rightly condemned, because, as jurisconsults say, anyone has jurisdiction over those who willingly submit themselves to it. The second engine brought up to shake the authority of the Synod is the testimony of Peter Berengarius, of Poictiers, who, in his Apology for Al-aelard, his teacher, written against the Fathers of the Council, and Bernard in particular, utters such shameless falsehoods and such disgraceful libels that it is a wonder that any man of ordinary good feeling should put up with them, or bring forward such an audacious and unscrupulous man, who scoffs at venerable Bishops as "drunkards, dogs, pigs," thus exposing himself not only to the ridicule, but also to the just indignation of his readers. But let us see what in his more lucid moments he wrote to the Bishop of Mende about S. Bernard: " Why, they say, now that you have finished the first volume, do you not proceed with the second as you had promised? Because, in course of time, I had a clearer apprehension, and I came to be of the same mind as Bernard. I was unwilling to be the patron of the articles charged against Abaelard, because though their meaning was good, their form was bad. Well, then, they say, when you decided to leave the second book alone why did you not destroy the first? I would have done so, I reply, if it were not that my work might be of use in furnishing examples,'' &c.

Iii. In the third place there is alleged against the sentence of the Roman Pontiff an indecent haste in pronouncing it, because he condemned Abaelard without hearing his defence. But were not the acts of the Council of Soissons, at which Abaelard was present, sufficient evidence? Was there any one of the Cardinals or clergy of the Roman Curia who was not well acquainted with his opinions, or who would not, if it had been possible, have tried to save him from condemnation whom very many of them had had as teacher? Therefore, let the sentence of Innocent stand, let the authority of the Council and of S. Bernard stand unshaken, and let Abaelard have no other excuse for his error than his own, The news has gone abroad amongst many, and I suppose has reached you, why we are convoked at Sens, within the Octave of Pentecost, and provoked to a contest in defence of the Faith, although the servant of the Lord must not strive, but rather be patient to all. If it were my own cause, the son of your Holiness might not undeservedly, perhaps, boast himself in your protection. But now since it is also yours, nay, more yours than mine, I bid you the more confidently, and ask you the more importunately, to show yourselves friends in need. I mean, friends not to me, but to Christ, whose Bride calls to you that she is well-nigh choked in the midst of a forest of heresies, and a crop of errors which are springing up under your care and protection. The friend of the Bridegroom will not desert Her in Her time of trouble. Nor wonder that I invite you so suddenly and within so short a time; it is because the opposite side in its wiliness and craft is preparing to attack the unprepared, and to force the unarmed to join battle.