RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Abeel Abelard
from time to time at the Paraclete, which he had presented to Heloise after the nunnery of Argenteuil was closed (c. 1127); but his visits as spiritual director of the nuns who gathered about his wife caused scandal, and he had to give them up. Another attempt was made on his life; and once more he sought safety in flight, whither is not known.
For several years his life is obscure; it is only
known that in 1136 John of Salisbury heard him
lecture in the school on the hill of St. Genevieve in
Paris, and that during this period he wrote his
autobiography, the Historia calamitatum. In 1141
a council, instigated mainly by Bernard of Clair-
vaux, a man thoroughly antipathetic to Abelard,
who had long considered his teaching wrong and
his influence dangerous, met at Sens (61 m. s.s.e. of
Paris). Certain extracts from Abelard's writings
were pronounced erroneous and hereti-
4. Second cal (June 4, 1141). Abelard declined
Condemna- to defend himself; he appealed to the
tion for pope, and with his followers left the
Heresy, council. His former pupil, Cardinal Guido de Castello (afterward Pope Celestine II.), took his part at Rome; but Bernard wrote a letter denouncing Arnold of Brescia, another pupil, as one of the champions of Abelard, and thereby influenced the decision of Pope Innocent II., who condemned Abelard to silence, excommunicated his followers, ordered him and Arnold to retire to a monastery, and their books to be burned (July 16, 1141). Abelard wrote an apology defending himself against the action of the council, and sent a letter to Heloise maintaining his orthodoxy. He wrote a second apology submitting to the Church, and made peace with Bernard.
By the friendly intervention of Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny, permission was given him to spend the rest of his days at Cluny. He continued his studies, " read constantly, prayed
5. Last often, gladly kept silence." But, bro- Days. ken by his sufferings and misfortunes, he did not live long there. With a view to his physical betterment Peter sent him to the neighboring priory of St. Marcel, at Chalons and there he died. His body was taken to the Paraclete; and on the death of Heloise (May 16, 1164) her body was placed in the same coffin. In 1817 their remains were removed to the cemetery of Pere Lachaise, Paris, and a monument was erected of stone from the ruins of the Paraclete.
II. System: Abelard belonged to the school of Anselm of Canterbury, but he did not follow him slavishly; and he was more critic than apologist of any system. He borrowed much from Augustine, Jerome, and older Church Fathers, as well as from Agobard, Claudius of Turin, Engena, and Fredegis. His originality is seen in his doctrine of the Trinity and the Atonement and, as a philosopher, particularly in his teaching concerning the principia and his position toward the question of universalia. The latter is not quite 1. Philoso- clear; but it appears that he was phy. neither nominalist, realist, nor conceptualise William of Champeaux, the extreme realist, declared the universalia to be the very essence of all existence, and individuality
only the product of incidental circumstances. To this Abelard objected that it led to pantheism; and he pursued his criticism so keenly that he forced William to modify his system. He rejected nominalism also, according to which the universalia are mere names, declaring that our conceptions must correspond to things which occasion them. This view is not conceptualism in so far as it does not in one-sided fashion emphasize the assertion that the general ideas are mere conceptus mentis, mere subjective ideas.
As theologian Abelard is noteworthy for his doctrine of revelation, his attitude toward belief on authority, and his conception of the 2. The- relation between faith and knowlology. edge. Concerning revelation he emphasizes the inner influence on the human spirit rather than its external manifestation, and does not limit inspiration to the writers of the Scriptures, but holds that it was imparted also to the Greek and Roman philosophers and to the Indian Brahmans. He teaches that the Scriptures are the result of the cooperation of the Spirit of God with the human writers, recognizes degrees of inspiration, and admits that prophets and apostles may make mistakes. He does not hesitate to disclose the contradictions in tradition, and distinguishes like a good Protestant between the authority of the Scriptures and that of the Fathers. Faith means to him a belief in things not susceptible to sense which can be grounded on rational demonstration or satisfactory authority. He opposes the compulsion of authority, will have free discussion of religious things, and everywhere follows his own conviction; but he sets narrow limits to what can be known. An adequate knowledge of the unity and trinity of God he declares impossible, as well as a scientific proof that shall compel belief in the existence of God and immortality. Here he asserts merely a possibility of belief. He condemns the acceptance of formulas of belief without knowing what they mean, and will have no one required to believe anything contrary to reason; he found nothing of the kind himself in the Scriptures or the teaching of the Church, and does not mean to exclude the supernatural. The doctrine of the Trinity he always treats in connection with the divine attributes; and in spite of all precautions the Trinity always becomes in his thought one of the attributes. He qualifies omnipotence by teaching that God does everything which he can, and therefore he could not do more than he has done. He can not prevent evil, but is able only to permit it and to turn it to good. As for his ethics, he teaches that moral good and ill inhere not in the act but in the motive. The evil propensity is not sin; it is the poena merely, and not the culpa, which has passed from Adam upon all. His theory of the Atonement is moral. The aim of the incarnation and sufferings of Christ was to move men to love by this highest revelation of the divine love. The love thus awakened frees from the bondage of sin, enables to fulfil the law, and impels to do the will of God, no longer in fear, but in the freedom of the sons of God. By law he understands the natural law which Christ taught and fulfilled, giving thereby
Abelard Abhedananda