Abelard was about thirty-five when he formed an acquaintance with Ileloise, the niece of Fulbert, a canon in the Cathedral of Paris. She was probably under twenty. He contracted with her a secret and unlawful connection, the fruit of which was a sen named Peter Astrolabus. Soon after Abelard mar- ried Ileloise; but the marriage was kept secret, and, at the suggestion of Abelard, Ileloise retired into the convent of Argenteuil, near Paris, where she had been, as a child, brought up. The relatives of Ileloise, en- raged at this, and believing that Abelard had de- ceived them, revenged themselves by indicting the se- verest personal injuries upon him. He then, being forty years old, took the monastic vows at S. Denys, and persuaded Ileloise to do the same at Argenteuil. From this time he devoted himself to the study of the- ology, and before long published his work Intruductio
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ad Theologiam, in which he spoke of the Trinity in so subtle a manner that he was openly taxed with heresy. Upon this he was cited to appear before a council held at Soissons, in 1121, by the pope's legate, where, al- though he was convicted of no error, nor was any ex- amination made of the case, he was compelled to burn his book with his own hands. After a brief detention at the abbey of St. Medard, he returned to his monas- tery, where he quarrelled with his abbot, Adamus, and the other monks (chiefly because he was too good a critic to admit that Dionysius, the patron saint of France, was identical with the Areopagite of the same name mentioned in the Acts), and retired to a solitude near Nogent-sur-Seine, in the diocese of Troves, where, with the consent of the bishop, Hatto, he built an oratory in the name of the Most Holy Trinity, which he called Paraclete, and dwelt there with another clerk and his pupils, who soon gathered around him again. His hearers, at various periods, were numbered by thousands. Being called from his retreat (A.D. 1125) by the monks of St. Gildas, in Bretagne, who had elected him their abbot, he abode for some time with them, but was at length compelled to flee from the monastery (about 1134) to escape their wicked designs upon his life, and took up his abode near Paraclete, where Heloise and her nuns were at that time settled. About the year 1140, the old charge of heresy was re- newed against him, and by no less an accuser than the celebrated Bernard of Clairvaux, who was his op- ponent in the council held at Sens in that year. Abelard, seeing that he could not expect his cause to receive a fair hearing, appealed to Borne, and at once set out upon his journey thither. Happening, how- ever, on his route, to pass through Cluny, ho was kindly received by the abbot, Peter the Venerable, by whose means he was reconciled to Bernard, and final- ly determined to pass the remainder of his days at Cluny. He died April 21, 1142, aged sixty-three years, at the monastery of S. Marcel, whither he had been sent for his health.
As Bernard was the representative of Church au- thority in that age, so Abelard was the type of the new school of free inquiry, and of the use of reason in the- ology. His philosophy was chiefly, if not wholly, dia- lectics. In the controversy between the Realists and the Nominalists he could be classed with neither; his position was the intermediate one denoted by the mod- ern term Conceptualism. In theology he professed to agree with the Church doctrines, and quoted Augus- tine, Jerome, and the fathers generally, as authorities ; but held, at the same time, that it was the province of reason to develop and vindicate the doctrines them- selves.
"At the request of his hearers he published his In- troductio ad Theologiam ; but in accordance with the stand-point of theological science in that atce, the idea of Theologia was confined, and embraced only Dogmat- ics. The work was originally, and remained a mere fragment of the doctrines of religion. He agreed so far with Anselm's principles as to assert that the In- tellects can only develop what is given in the Fides ; but he differs in determining the manner in which Faith is brought into existence ; nor does he recog- nize so readily the limits of speculation, and, in some points, he goes beyond the doctrinal belief of the Church; yet the tendency of the rational element ly- ing at the basis, and his method of applying it, are dif- ferent. The former was checked in its logical devel- opment by the limits set to it in the Creed of the Church ; many things also are only put down on the spur of the moment. The work not only created a prodigious sensation, but also showed traces of a pre- ceding hostility."
He treated the doctrine of the Trinity (in his The- ologia Christiana) very boldlj'', assuming "unity in the Divine Being, along with diversity in his relations (relationum diversitas), in which consist the Divine
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Persons. He also maintains a cognition of God (as the most perfect and absolutely independent Being), by means of the reason, which he ascribes to the heathen philosophers, without derogating from the incompre- hensibility of God. He also attempted to explain (in his Etkica), on philosophical principles, the chief con- ceptions of theological morality, as, for instance, the notions of vice and virtue. He made both to consist in the mental resolution, or in the intention ; and main- tained, against the moral conviction of his age, that no natural pleasures or sensual desires are in themselves of the nature of sin. He discovered the evidence of the morality of actions in the frame of mind and max- ims according to which those actions are undertaken." A pretty clear view of Abelard's theology is given by Neander, Hist, of Christian Dogmas, 478 sq. (transl. by Ryland, Lond. 1858, 2 vols). Abelard founded no school, in the proper sense of the word ; the results of his labors were critical and destructive, rather than positive. The later scholastics, however, were greatly indebted to him, especially as to form and method. His writings are as follows ; Epistolce ad J/eloisam, 4 ; Epistolce alive- ad diversos; Historia Calamitatuni sita- rum , Apologia ; Expositio Orationis Dominica; ; E.iposi- tio in Symbolum Apostolorum ; Expositio in Symbolum Athanasii; Solutiones Problematum Helotsce; Adversus Ihereses liber; Commentariorum in Epistolam ad Roma- nos, libri 5 ; Sermones 32 ; Ad Heloisam ejusqiie Yirgines Paracletenses ; Introduetio ad Theologiam, libri 3 ; Epi- tome, Theologia Christiana.