CM4 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1019-1204.
St. Denis, the patron of France, was the Dionysius converted by Paul at Athens. The monks of St. Denis would not tolerate him. He fled, retracted his utterance, and with the permis sion of Suger, the new abbot of St. Denis, settled in a waste tract in Champagne and built an oratory which he called after the third person of the Trinity, the Paraclete. Students again gathered around him, and the original structure of reeds and straw was replaced by a substantial building of stone. But old rivals, as he says, again began to pursue him just as the heretics pursued Athanasius of old, and " certain ec clesiastics" - - presumably Norbert, the founder of the Premonstrants, and Bernard of Clairvaux — were stirred up against him. Abyelard, perhaps with not too much self-dis paragement, says of himself that, in comparison to them, he seemed to be as an ant before a lion. It was under these cir cumstances that he received the notice of his election as ab bot of the monastery of St. Gildas on the sea, in his native Brittany. He went, declaring that " the envy of the Francians drove him to the West, as the envy of the Romans drove Jerome to the East."
The monks of St. Gildas are portrayed by Abselard as a band of unmitigated ruffians. They had their wives and children settled upon the convent's domains. They treated their new abbot with contempt and violence, twice, at least, attempting his life. On one occasion it was by drugging the chalice. He complained of the barrenness of the surround ings. Bernard described him as an abbot without discipline. In sheer despair, Abselard fled and in " striving to escape one sword I threw myself upon another," he said. At this point the autobiography breaks off and we know little of its author till 1136.1
In the meantime the nuns of Argentueil were driven out of their quarters. In 1127, Abselard placed Heloise in charge of the Paraclete, and under her management it became pros-
1 Abaelard closes his autobiography by declaring that like another Cain he was dragged about the earth, a fugitive and vagabond, but also by quoting passages upon the providence of God as that all things work together for good to them that love Him.
§ 90. PETER AB^ELARI). 615
perous. He had observed a cold silence for a protracted period, but now and again visited the Paraclete and delivered sermons to the nuns. Heloise received the Story of Misfor tunes, and, in receiving it, wrote, addressing him as " her lord or rather father, her husband or rather brother, from his hand maid or rather daughter, his consort or rather sister." Her first two letters have scarcely, if ever, been equalled in the annals of correspondence in complete abandonment of heart and glowing expressions of devotion. She appealed to him to send her communications. Had she not offered her very being on the altar for his sake ! Had she not obeyed him in everything, and in nothing would she offend him !
Abaelard replied to Heloise as the superior of the nuns of the Paraclete. She was to him nothing more. He preached to her sermons on prayer, asked for the intercession of the nuns on his behalf, and directed that his body be laid away in the Paraclete. He rejoiced that Heloise's connection with himself prevented her from entering into marriage and giv ing birth to children. She had thereby been forced into a higher life and to be the mother of many spiritual daughters. Heloise plied him with questions about hard passages in the Scriptures and about practical matters of daily living and monastic dress, — a device to secure the continuance of the correspondence. Abselard replied by giving rules for the nuns which were long and severe. He enjoined upon them, above all else, the study of the Scriptures, and called upon them to imitate Jerome who took up Hebrew late in life. He sent them sermons, seven of which had been delivered in the Paraclete. He proposed that there should be a con vent for monks close by the Paraclete. The monks and nuns were to help each other. An abbot was to stand at the head of both institutions. The nuns were to do the monks' washing and cooking, milk the cows, feed the chickens and geese.
In 1137 and again in 1139, we find Abselard suddenly installed at St. Gene vie ve and enjoying, for a while, mete oric popularity. John of Salisbury was one of his pupils. How the change was brought about does not fully appear.