Peter Abelard ~ the Story of My Misfortunes

8/13/2019 Peter Abelard ~ the Story of My Misfortunes

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referencecollectionbook kaosas city

public librarykansas city,msssouri


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THIS EDITION IS LIMITED TO

TWELVE HUNDRED AND FIFTY COPIES

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Wistaria Calamttatum


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1Calamttatum

T/fE STORY OFMY MISFORTUNESAN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

BYPETER ABELARDTRANSLATED BY

HENRY ADAMS BELLOWSINTRODUCTION BY

RALPH ADAMS CRAM

SAINT PAULTHOMAS A. BOYDi 922

&ftb


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COPYRIGHT 1922PRINTED 1 1ST AMERICA

Prtmtxng Hause ofWILLIAM EDWIN RTTDGE


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Facsimile ofthe originalmanuscript


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INTRODUCTIONE Bfistoria Calamitaturn ofPeter Abelard Is oneof thosehuman documents, out of the very heart of

theMiddleAges, that illuminates bytheglowofits ardoura shadowy period that has been made even more duskyand incomprehensible by unsympathetic commentatorsand the ill-digested matter of source-books. Like theConfessions of St. Augustine it is an authentic revela-tion of personality and, like the Iatter5 it seems to showhow unchangeable is man., how consistent unto himselfwhether he is of the sixth century or the twelfth or in-deed of the twentieth century. Evolution may changethe flora and fauna of the world, or modify its physicalforms, but man is always the same and the unrolling ofthe centuries affects him not at all. Ifwe can assume thevivid personality.* the enormous intellectual power andthe clear, keen mentality of Abelard and his contempo-raries and immediate successors, there is no reason whyThe Story of My Misfortunes should not have beenwritten within the last decade.They are large assumptions, for this is not a period in

world-history when the informing energy of life expressesitself through such qualities, whereas the twelfth cen-tury was of precisely this nature. The antecedent hun-dred years had seen the recovery from the barbarism


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Hisforia Calamitatumthat engulfed Western Europe after the fall of Rome,and the generation of those vital forces that for two cen-turies were to infuse society with a vigour almost un-exampled in its potency and in the things it brought topass. The parabolic curve that describes the trajectoryof Mediaevalism was then emergent out of chaos andold night and Abelard and his opponent, St. Bernard,rode high on the mounting force in its swift and almostviolent ascent.

Pierre du Pallet, yclept Abelard, was born in 1079 anddied in 1 142, and his life precisely covers the period ofthe birth, development and perfecting of that Gothicstyle

of architecture which is one of the great exemplarsof the period. Actually, the Norman development occu-pied the years from 1050 to 1 125 while the initiating anddetermining ofGothic consumed only fifteen years, fromBury, begun in 1125, to Saint-Denis, the work ofAbbotSuger, the friend and partisan of Abelard, in 1140. Itwas the time of the Crusades, of the founding and devel-opment of schools and universities, of the invention orrecovery of great arts, of the growth of music, poetryand romance. It was the age of great kings and knightsand leaders of all kinds, but above all it was the epochof a new philosophy, refounded on the newly revealedcorner stones ofPlato and Aristotle, but with a new con-tent, a new impulse and a new method inspired byChristianity.

All these things, philosophy, art, personality, char-[n]


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Historia Calamitatumacter, were the product of the time, which, in its definite-ness and consistency, stands apart from all other epochsin history. The social system was that of feudalism, ascheme ofreciprocal duties, privileges and obligations asbetween man and man that has never been excelled byany other system that society has developed as its ownmethod of operation. As Dr. De Wulf has said in hisilluminating book Philosophy and Civilization in theMiddle Ages (a volume that should be read by any onewho wishes rightly to understand the spirit and qualityof Mediaevalism), the feudal sentiment^r excellence

. . is the sentiment of the value and dignity of theIndividual man. The feudal man lived as a free man; hewas master in his own house; he sought his end in him-self; he was and this is a scholastic expression, -properselfsum existens: all feudal obligations were foundedupon respect for personality and the given word.Of course this admirable scheme of society with itsguild system ofindustry, its absence ofusury in any formand itsjust sense ofcomparative values, was shot throughand through with religion both in faith and practice.Catholicism was universally and implicitly accepted.Monasticism had redeemed Europe from barbarism andCluny had freed the Church from the yoke of Germanimperialism. This unity and immanence of religion gavea consistency to society otherwise unobtainable, andpoured its vitality into every form of human thoughtand action.

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Historia GalamitatumIt was Catholicism and the spirit of feudalism that

preserved men from the dangers inherent in the immenseindividualism of the time. With this powerful and pene-trating coordinating force men were safe to go about asfar as they liked in the line of individuality,, whereas to-day, for example, the unifying force of a common and vi-tal religion being absent and nothing having been offeredto take its place, the result of a similar tendency is ego-tism and anarchy. These things happened in the end inthe case of Mediaevalism when the power and the in-fluence of religion once began to weaken, and the Renais-sance and Reformation dissolved the fabric of a unifiedsociety. Thereafter it became necessary to bring someorder out of the spiritual, intellectual and physicalchaos through the application of arbitrary force, and socame absolutism in government, the tyranny of the newintellectualism, the Catholic Inquisition and the PuritanTheocracy.

In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, however, thebalance is justly preserved, though it was but an unstableequilibrium, and therefore during the time of Abelardwe find the widest diversity of speculation and freedomof thought which continue unhampered for more thana hundred years. The mystical school of the Abbey of St.Victor in Paris follows one line (perhaps the most nearlyright of all though it was submerged by the intellectualforce and vivacity of the Scholastics) with Hugh of St.Victor as its greatest exponent. The Franciscans and

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Historia CalamitatumDominicans each possessed great schools of philosophyand dogmatic theology,and in addition therewere a dozenindividual lines of speculation, each vitalized by someone personality, daring, original, enthusiastic. This pro-digious mental and spiritual activitywas largely fosteredby the schools, colleges and universities that had sud-denly appeared all over Europe. Never was such activityalong educational lines. Almost every cathedral had itsschool, and many of the abbeys as well, as for example,in France alone, Cluny, Citeaux and Bee, St. Martin ofTours,Laon,Chartres,RheimsandParis.Totheseschoolsstudents poured in from all over the world in numbersmounting to many thousands for such as Paris for ex-ample, and the mutual rivalries were intense and some-times disorderly. Groups of students would choose theirown masters and follow them from place to place, evensubjecting them to discipline if in their opinion they didnot live up to the intellectual mark they had set as theirstandard. As there was not only one religion and onesocial system, but one universal language as well, thisgathering from all the four quarters of Europe was per-fectly possible, andhadmuch to do with the maintenanceof that unity which marked society for three centuries.At the time of Abelard the schools of Chartres and

Paris were at the height of their fame and power. Ful-bert, Bernard and Thierry, all of Chartres, had fixed itsfame for a long period, and at Paris Hugh and Richard ofSt. Victor and William of Champeaux were names to

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Historia Calamitatumconjure with, while Anselm of Laon, Adelard of Bath,Alan ofLille, John of Salisbury, Peter Lombard, were allfrom time to time students or teachers in one of theschools of the Cathedral, the Abbey of St. Victor or Ste.Genevieve.

Earlier in the Middle Ages the identity of theologyand philosophy had been proclaimed, following theNeo-Platonic and Augustinian theory, and the latter (cf.Peter Damien and Duns Scotus Eriugena) was even re-duced to a position that made it no more than the obe-dient handmaid of theology. In the eleventh centuryhowever, St. Anselm had drawn a clear distinction be-tween faith and reason, and thereafter theology andphilosophy were generally accepted as individual butallied sciences, both serving as lines of approach to truthbut differing in their method. Truth was one and there-fore there could be no conflict between the conclusionsreached after different fashions. In the twelfth centuryPeter of Blois led a certain group called rigourists whostill looked askance at philosophy, or rather at the in-tellectual methods by which it proceeded, and they wereinclined to condemn it as the devil's art, but they wereon the losing side and John of Salisbury, Alan of Lille,Gilbert de la Porr6e and Hugh of St. Victor prevailed intheir contention that philosophers were humanae vide-licet sapientiae amatores while theologians were di~vinae scripturae doctores

Cardinal Mercier, himself the greatest contemporary[vi]


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Historia Calamitatumexponent of Scholastic philosophy,, defines philosophy asthe science of the totality of things. The twelfth cen-tury was a time when men were striving to see phenom-ena in this sense and established a great rational syn-thesis that should yet be in full conformity with thedogmatic theology of revealed religion. Abelard was oneof the most enthusiastic and daring of these Mediaevalthinkers, and it is not surprising that he should havefound himself at issue not only with the duller type oftheologians but with his philosophical peers themselves.He was an intellectual force of the first magnitude and amaster of dialectic; he was also an egotist through andthrough, and a man of strong passions. He would anddid use his logical faculty and his mastery of dialecticto justify his own desires, whether these were for carnalsatisfaction or the maintenance of an original intellec-tual concept. It was precisely this danger that arousedthe fears of the rigourists and in the light of succeedingevents in the domain of intellectualism it is impossibleto deny that therewas somejustification for theirgloomyapprehensions. In St. Thomas Aquinas this intellectual-izing process marked its highest point and beyond therewas no margin of safety. He himself did not overstep theverge of danger, but after him this limit was overpassed.Theperfectbalancebetweenmindand spiritwas achievedby Hugh of St. Victor, but afterwards the severance be-gan and on the one side was the unwholesome hyper-spiritualization of the Rhenish mystics, on the other the

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Historia Calamitatumfalse intellectualism of Descartes, Kant and the entiremodern school of materialistic philosophy. It was theclear prevision of this inevitable issue that made of St.Bernard not only an implacable opponent of Abelardbut of the whole system of Scholasticism as well. For atime he was victorious. Abelard was silenced and themysticism of the Victorines triumphed, only to be super-seded fifty years later when the two great orders, Do-minican and Franciscan, produced their triumphant pro-tagonistsofintellectualism,AlexanderHales andAlbertusMagnus, and finally the greatest pure intellect of alltime, St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Bernard, St. Francis ofAssisi, the Victorines, maintained that after all, asHenri Bergson was to say, seven hundred years later,the mind ofman by its very nature is incapable of ap-prehending reality, and that therefore faith is betterthan reason. Lord Bacon came to the same conclusionwhen he wrote Let men please themselves as they willin admiring and almost adoring the human kind, this iscertain; that, as an uneven mirrour distorts the rays ofobjects according to its own figure and section, so themind . . cannot be trusted. And Hugh of St. Victorhimself, had written, even in the days ofAbelard : Therewas a certain wisdom that seemed such to them thatknew not the true wisdom. The world found it and beganto be puffed up, thinking itselfgreat in this. Confiding inits wisdom it became presumptuous and boasted itwould attain the highest wisdom. And it made itself a

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Historia Calamitatumladder of the face of creation.... Then those thingswhich were seen were known and there were otherthings which were not known; and through those whichwere manifest they expected to reach those that werehidden. And they stumbled and fell into the falsehoodsof their own imagining ... So God made foolish thewisdom of this world, and He pointed out another wis-dom, which seemed foolishness and was not. For itpreached Christ crucified, in order that truth might besought in humility. But the world despised it, wishing tocontemplate the works of God, which He had made asource of wonder, and it did not wish to venerate whatHe had set for imitation, neither did it look to its owndisease, seeking medicine in piety; but presuming on afalse health, it gave itself over with vain curiosity to thestudy of alien things.These considerations troubled Abelard not at all. He

was conscious of a mind of singular acuteness and atongue of parts, both of which would do whatever hewilled. Beneath all the tumultuous talk of Paris, when hefirst arrived there, lay the great and unsolved problemof Universals and this he promptly made his own, rush-ing in where others feared to tread. William of Cham-peaux had rested on a Platonic basis, Abelard assumedthat of Aristotle, and the clash began. It is not a lucidsubject, but the best abstract may be found in ChapterXIV of Henry Adams' Mont-Saint-Michel and Char-tres while this and the two succeeding chapters give the

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Historia Calamitatummost luminous and vivacious account of the principlesat issue in this most vital of intellectual feuds.

According to the latest authorities, the doctrine ofuniversals which convulsed the schools of the twelfthcentury has never received an adequate answer. Whatis a species? what is a genus or a family or an order?More or less convenient terms of classification, aboutwhich the twelfth century cared very little, while itcared deeply about the essence of classes Science hasbecome too complex to affirm the existence of universaltruths, but it strives for nothing else, and disputes theproblem, within its own limits, almost as earnestly as inthe twelfth century, when the whole field of human andsuperhuman activity was shut between these barriers ofsubstance, universals, and particulars. Little has changedexcept the vocabulary and the method. The schoolsknew that their society hung for life on the demonstra-tion that God, the ultimate universal, was a reality, outof which all other universal truths or realities sprang.Truth was a real thing, outside of human experience.The schools of Paris talked and thought of nothing else.John of Salisbury, who attended Abelard's lecturesabout 1136, and became Bishop of Chartres in 1176,seems to have been more surprised than we need be atthe intensity of the emotion. 'One never gets away fromthis question/ he said. From whatever point a discus-sion starts, it is always led back and attached to that.It is the madness of Rufus about Naevia; He thinks of


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Historia Calamitatumnothing else; talks of nothing else, and ifNaevia did notexist,, Rufus would be dumb.

*

. . . In these scholastic tournaments the two cham-pions started from opposite points: one from the ulti-mate substance. God, the universal, the ideal,, thetype; the other from the individual,, Socrates., the con-crete, the observed fact of experience, the object of sen-sual perception. The first champion William in thisinstance assumed that the universal was a real thing;and for that reason he was called a realist. His opponentAbelard held that the universal was only nominally

real; and on that account he was called a nominalist.Truth, virtue, humanity, exist as units and realities,said William. Truth, replied Abelard, is only the sum ofall possible facts that are true, as humanity is the sum ofall actual human beings. The ideal bed is a form, madeby God, said Plato. The ideal bed is a name, imaginedby ourselves, said Aristotle. 'I start from the universe/said William. 1 start from the atom,' said Abelard; and,once having started, they necessarily came into collisionat some point between the two.

In this Story ofMy Misfortunes Abelard gives hisown account of the triumphant manner in which he con-founded his master, William, but as Henry Adams says,We should be more credulous than twelfth-centurymonks, ifwe believed, on Abelard's word in 1 135, that in1 1 10 he had driven out of the schools the most accom-plished dialectician of the age by an objection so familiar

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Hisforia Calamitatumthat no other dialectician was ever silenced by it what-ever may have been the case with theologians and soobvious that it could not have troubled a scholar offifteen. William stated a selected doctrine as old asPlato; Abelard interposed an objection as old as Aris-totle. Probably Plato and Aristotle had received thequestion and answer from philosophers ten thousandyears older than themselves. Certainly the whole ofphilosophy has always been involved in this dispute.

So began the battle of the schools with all its morethan military strategy and tactics., and in the end it wasa drawn battle, in spite of its marvels of intellectualheroism and dialectical sublety. Says Henry Adamsagain :

In every age man has been apt to dream uneasily,rolling from side to side, beating against imaginary bars,unless, tired out, he has sunk into indifference or scep-ticism. Religious minds prefer scepticism. The true saintis a profound sceptic; a total disbeliever in human rea-son, who has more than once joined hands on this groundwith some who were at best sinners. Bernard was a totaldisbeliever in Scholasticism; so was Voltaire. Bernardbrought the society of his time to share his scepticism,but could give the society no other intellectual amuse-ment to relieve its restlessness. His crusade failed; hisascetic enthusiasm faded; God came no nearer. If therewas in all France, between 1 140 and 1 200, a more typicalEnglishman of the future Church of England type than

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Historia CalamitatumJohn of Salisbury, he has left no trace; and John wrote adescription of his time which makes a picturesque con-trast with the picture painted by Abelard, his old mas-ter, of the century at its beginning. John weighed Abe-lard and the schools against Bernard and the cloister, andcoolly concluded that the way to truth led rather throughCiteaux, which brought him to Chartres as Bishop in1 176, and to a mild scepticism in faith. 1 prefer to doubt'he said, Vather than rashly define what is hidden/ Thebattle with the schools had then resulted only in creat-ing three kinds of sceptics : the disbelievers in humanreason; the passive agnostics; and the sceptics proper,who would have been atheists had they dared. The firstclass was represented by the School of St. Victor; thesecond by John of Salisbury himself; the third, by aclass of schoolmen whom he called Cornificii, as thoughthey made a practice of inventing horns of dilemma onwhich to fix their opponents; as, for example, they askedwhether a pig which was led to market was led by theman or the cord. One asks instantly: What cord?Whether Grace, for instance, or Free Will?

Bishop John used the science he had learned in theschool only to reach the conclusion that, if philosophywere a science at all, its best practical use was to teachcharity love. Even the early, superficial debates of theschools, in 1100-50, had so exhausted the subject thatthe most intelligent men saw how little was to be gainedby pursuing further those lines of thought. The twelfth

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Historia Calamitatumcentury had already reached the point where the seven-teenth century stood when Descartes renewed the at-tempt to give a solid, philosophical basis for deism byhis celebrated 'Cogito, ergo sum Although that ultimatefact seemed new to Europe when Descartes revived it asthe starting-point of his demonstration, it was as oldand familiar as St. Augustine to the twelfth century,and as little conclusive as any other assumption of theEgo or the Non-Ego. The schools argued, according totheir tastes, from unity to multiplicity, or from multi-plicity to unity; but what they wanted was to connectthe two. They tried realism and found that it led to pan-theism. They tried nominalism and found that it endedin materialism. They attempted a compromise in con-ceptualism which begged the whole question. Then theylay down, exhausted. In the seventeenth century thesame violent struggle broke out again, and wrung fromPascal the famous outcry of despair in which the Frenchlanguage rose, perhaps for the last time, to the grandstyle of the twelfth century. To the twelfth century itbelongs; to the century of faith and simplicity; not tothe mathematical certainties of Descartes and Leibnitzand Newton, or to the mathematical abstractions ofSpinoza. Descartes had proclaimed his famous concep-tual proof of God: 'I am conscious of myself, and mustexist; I am conscious of God and He must exist.' Pascalwearily replied that it was not God he doubted, butlogic. He was tortured by the impossibility of rejecting

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Historia Calamitatumman's reason by reason; unconsciously sceptical, heforced himself to disbelieve in himself rather than admita doubt of God. Man had tried to prove God,, and hadfailed : 'The metaphysical proofs of God are so remote(eloignees) from the reasoning of men, and so contradic-tory (impliquees^ far-fetched) that they made little im-pression; and even if they served to convince somepeople, it would only be during the instant that they seethe demonstration ; an hour afterwards they fear to havedeceived themselves/ Abelard was always, as he has been called, a scho-

lastic adventurer, a philosophical and theological free-lance, and it was after the Calamity that he followedthose courses that resulted finally in his silencing andhis obscure death. It is almost impossible for us ofmod-ern times to understand the violence of partisanshiparoused by his actions and published words that centreapparently around the placing of the hermitage he hadmade for himselfunder the patronage of the third Personof the Trinity, the Paraclete, the Spirit of love and com-passion and consolation, and the consequent argumentsby which he justified himself. To us it seems that he wasonly trying to exalt the power of the Holy Spirit, a piousaction at the least, but to the episcopal and monasticconservators of the faith he seems to have been guilty oftrying to rationalize an unsolvable mystery, to find anintellectual solution forbidden to man. In some obscureway the question seems to be involved in that other of

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Historia Calamitatumthe function of the Blessed Virgin as the fount of mercyand compassion, and at this time when the cult of theMother ofGod had reached its highest point of potencyand poignancy anything of the sort seemed intolerable.For a time the affairs of Abelard prospered: Abbot

Suger of Saint-Denis was his defender., and he enjoyedthe favor of the Pope and the King. He was made anabbot and his influence spread in every direction. In1 137 the King died and conditions at Rome changed sothat St. Bernard became almost Pope and King in hisown person. Within a year he proceeded againstAbelard;his Theology was condemned at a council of Sens,this judgment was confirmed by the Pope, and the pen-alty of silence was imposed on the author probably themost severe punishment he could be called upon to en-dure. As a matter of fact it was fatal to him. He startedforthwith for Rome but stopped at the Abbey of Clunyin the company of its Abbot, Peter the Venerable, themost amiable figure of the twelfth century, and no verydevoted admirer of St. Bernard, to whom, as a matter offact, he had once written, You perform all the diffi-cult religious duties; you fast, you watch, you suffer;but you will not endure the easy ones you do notlove. Here he found two years of peace after his trou-bled life, dying in the full communion of the Church on21 April, 1142.The problems of philosophy and theology that were

so vital in the Middle Ages interest us no more, even[xvi]


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Historia Calamitatumwhen they are less obscure than those so rife in thetwelfth century,, but the problem of human love isalways new and so it is not perhaps surprising that theabiding interest concerns itself with Abelard's relation-ship with Helo'ise. So far as he is concerned it is not avery savoury matter. He deliberately seduced a pupil,a beautiful girl entrusted to him by her uncle., a simple-minded old canon of the Cathedral ofParis, under whoseroof he ensconced himself by false pretences and withthe full intention of gaining the niece for himself. Abe-lard seems to have exercised an irresistible fascinationfor men and women alike, and his plot succeeded to ad-miration. Stricken by a belated remorse, he finally mar-ried Heloi'se against her unselfish protests and partly tolegitimatize his unborn child, and shortly after he wassurprised and overpowered by emissaries of Canon Ful-bert and subjected to irreparable mutilation. He tellsthe story with perfect frankness and with hardly morethan formal expressions of compunction, and thereafterfollows the narrative of their separation, he to a monas-tery, she to a convent, and of his care for her during herconventual life, or at least for that part of it that hadpassed before the History was written. Through thewhole story it is Heloisewho shines brightly as a curiouslybeautiful personality, unselfish, self-sacrificing, andalmost virginal in her purity in spite of her fault. One hasfor her only sympathy and affection whereas it is difficultto feel either for Abelard in spite of his belated efforts

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Historia Calamitatumat rectifying his own sin and his life-long devotion tohis solitary wife in her hidden cloister.The whole story was instantly known, Abelard's as-sailants were punished in kind, and he himself shortlyresumed his work of lecturing on philosophy and., a littlelater, on theology. Apparently his reputation did notsuffer in the least, nor did hers; in fact her piety becamealmost a by-word and his fame as a great teacher in-creased by leaps and bounds: neither his offence nor itspunishment seemed to bring lasting discredit. This fact,which seems strange to us, does not imply a lack ofmoralsense in the community but rather the prevalence ofstandards alien to our own. It is only since the advent ofPuritanism that sexual sins have been placed at thehead of the whole category. During the Middle Ages, asalways under Christianity., the most deadly sins werepride, covetousness, slander and anger. These impliedinherent moral depravity, but illicit love was love out-side the law ofman, and did not of necessity and alwaysinvolve moral guilt. Christ was Himself very gentleand compassionate with the sins of the flesh but relent-less in the case of the greater sins of the spirit. Puri-tanism overturned the balance of things, and by con-centrating its condemnation on sexual derelictionsbecame blind to the greater sins of pride, avarice andanger. We have inherited the prejudice without acquir-ing the abstention, but the Middle Ages had a clearersense of comparative values and they could forgive, or

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Historia Calamitatumeven ignore, the sin of Abelard and Heloi'se when theycould less easily excuse the sin of spiritual pride or delib-erate cruelty. Moreover, these same Middle Ages be-lieved very earnestly in the Divine forgiveness of sinsfor which there had been real repentance and honesteffort at amendment. Abelard and Helo'ise had beengrievously punished, he himself had made every repara-tion that was possible, his penitence was charitably as-sumed, and therefore it was not for society to condemnwhat God would mercifully forgive.The twelfth and thirteenth centuries were not an ageof moral laxity; ideals and standards and conduct wereimmeasurably higher than they had been for five hun-dred years, higher than they were to be in the centuriesthat followed the crest ofMediaevalism. It was howevera time of enormous vitality, of throbbing energy thatwas constantly bursting its bounds, and as well a timeof personal liberty and freedom of action that wouldseem strange indeed to us in these days of endless legalrestraint and inhibitions mitigated by revolt. There werefew formal laws but there was Custom which was a sov-erign law in itself, and above all there was the moral lawof the Church, establishing its great fundamental prin-ciples but leaving details to the working out of life itself.Behind the sin of Abelard lay his intolerable spiritualpride, his selfishness and his egotism, qualities that so-ciety at large did not recognize because of their devotionto his engaging personality and their admiration for his

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Hutoria Calamitatumdazzling intellectual gifts. Their idol had sinned^ he hadbeen savagely punished,, he had repented; that was allthere was about it and the question was at an end.

In reading the Historia Calamitatum there is one con-sideration that suggests itself that is subject for seriousthought. Written as it was some years after the greattragedy of his life, it gives a portrait that somehow seemsout of focus. We know that during his early years inParis Abelard was a bold and daring champion in thelists of dialectic; brilliant, persuasive,, masculine to adegree; yet this self-portrait is ofaman timid, suspicious,,frightened of realities, shadows, possibilities. He is inabject terror of councils, hidden enemies^ even of hislife. The tone is querulous, even peevish at times^ andalways the egotism and the pride persist,, while he seemsdriven by the whip of desire for intellectual adventureinto places where he shrinks from defending himself, oris unable to do so. The antithesis is complete and one isdriven to believe that the terrible mutilation to whichhe had been subjected had broken down his personalityand left him in all things less than man. His narrative isfull of accusations against all manner of people, but it isnot necessary to take all these literally,, for it is evidentthat his natural egotism, overlaid by the circumstancesof his calamity3 produced an almost pathological condi-tion wherein suspicions became to him realities andterrors established facts.

It is doubtful if Abelard should be ranked very high[xx]


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Historia Calamitatumin the list of Mediaeval philosophers. He was more a di-alectician than a creative force,, andun til thedevelopmentof the episode with Helo'ise he seems to have cared pri-marily for the excitement ofdebate,, with small regard forthe value of the subjects under discussion. As an intel-lectualist he had much to do with the subsequent aban-donment of Plato in favour of Aristotle that was a markof pure scholasticism, while the brilliancy of his dialec-tical method became a model for future generations.After the Calamity he turned from philosophy to theol-ogy and ethics and here he reveals qualities of nobilitynot evident before. Particularly does he insist upon thefact that it is the subjective intention that determinesthe moral value of human actions even if it does notchange their essential character.The story of this philosophical soldier of fortune is aromance from beginning to end, a poignant humandrama shot through with passion, adventure, pathosand tragedy. In a sense it is an epitome of the earlierMiddle Ages and through it shines the bright light of anera of fervid living, of exciting adventure, of phenom-enal intellectual force and of large and comprehensiveliberty. As a single episode of passion it is not particu-larly distinguished except for the appealing personalityof Heloise; as a phase in the development of Christianphilosophy it is of only secondary value. United in one,the two factors achieve a brilliant dramatic unity thathas made the story of Abelard and Heloi'se immortal.

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^tstona Calamitatum


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O1FOREWORD

|FTEN the hearts of men and women are stirred,as likewise they are soothed in their sorrows, more

by example than by words. And therefore, because I toohave known some consolation from speech had with onewho was a witness thereof, am I now minded to write ofthe sufferings which have sprung out ofmy misfortunes,for the eyes of one who, though absent, is of himselfever a consoler. This I do so that, in comparing yoursorrows with mine, you may discover that yours arein truth nought, or at the most but of small account, andso shall you come to bear them more easily.


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Historia Calamitatumto my liking than the other forms of philosophy, Iexchanged all other weapons for these,, and to the prizesof victory in war I preferred the battle of minds in dis-putation. Thenceforth, journeying through many prov-inces, and debating as I went, going whithersoever Iheard that the study of my chosen art most flourished.,I became such an one as the Peripatetics.


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IIOF THE PERSECUTION HE HAD FROM His MASTERWILLIAM OF CHAMPEAUX OF His ADVENTURESAT MELUN, AT CoRBEIL AND AT PARIS OFHis WITHDRAWAL FROM THE CITY OF THE

PARISIANS TO MELUN, AND His RE-TURN TO MONT STE. GENEVIEVE

OF His JOURNEY TO HisOLD HOME

XCAME at length to Paris., where above all in thosedays the art of dialecticswas most flourishing, andthere did I meet William of Champeaux, my teacher, aman most distinguished in his science both by his renownand by his true merit. With him I remained for sometime, at first indeed well liked of him; but later I broughthim great grief, because I undertook to refute certainof his opinions, not infrequently attacking him in dis-putation, and now and then in these debates I wasadjudged victor. Now this, to those among my fellowstudents who were ranked foremost, seemed all the moreinsufferable because ofmy youth and the brief durationofmy studies.Out of this sprang the beginning of my misfortunes,which have followed me even to the present day; the

more widely my fame was spread abroad, the more bit-ter was the envy that was kindled against me. It wasgiven out that I, presuming on my gifts far beyond the

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Historia Calamitatumwarranty ofmy youth., was aspiring despite my tenderyears to the leadership of a school; nay, more, that I wasmaking ready the very place in which I would under-take this task3 the place being none other than the castleof Melun, at that time a royal seat. My teacher himselfhad some foreknowledge of this, and tried to remove myschool as far as possible from his own. Working in se-cret, he sought in every way he could before I left hisfollowing to bring to nought the school I had plannedand the place I had chosen for it. Since, however, in thatvery place he had many rivals, and some of them menof influence among the great ones of the land, relying ontheir aid I won to the fulfillment ofmy wish; the supportofmany was secured for me by reason of his own uncon-cealed envy. From this small inception ofmy school, myfame in the art of dialectics began to spread abroad, sothat little by little the renown, not alone of those whohad been my fellow students, but of our very teacherhimself, grew dim and was like to die out altogether.Thus it came about that, still more confident in myself,I moved my school as soon as I well might to the castleof Corbeil, which is hard by the city of Paris, for there Iknew there would be given more frequent chance for myassaults in our battle of disputation.No long time thereafter I was smitten with a grievousillness, brought upon me by my immoderate zeal forstudy. This illness forced me to turn homeward to mynative province, and thus for some years I was as if cut

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Historia Calamitatumoff from France. And yet, for that very reason, I wassought out all the more eagerly by those whose heartswere troubled by the lore of dialectics. But after a fewyears had passed, and I was whole again from my sick-ness, I learned that my teacher, that same William Arch-deacon of Paris, hadjchanged his former garb and joinedan order of the regular clergy. This he had done, or somen said, in order that he might be deemed more deeplyreligious, and so might be elevated to a loftier rank inthe prelacy, a thing which, in truth, very soon came topass, for he was made bishop of Chalons. Nevertheless,the garb he had donned by reason of his conversion didnought to keep him away either from the city of Paris orfrom his wonted study of philosophy; and in the verymonastery wherein he had shut himself up for the sakeof religion he straightway set to teaching again after thesame fashion as before.To him did I return, for I was eager to learn more of

rhetoric from his lips; and in the course of our many ar-guments on various matters, I compelled him by mostpotent reasoning first to alter his former opinion on thesubject of the universals, and finally to abandon italtogether. Now, the basis of this old concept of his re-garding the reality of universal ideas was that the samequality formed the essence alike of the abstract wholeand ofthe individualswhichwere its parts : in otherwords,that there could be no essential differences among theseindividuals, all being alike save for such variety as might

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Historia Calamitatumgrow out of the many accidents of existence. Thereafter,however, he corrected this opinion, no longer maintain-ing that the same quality was the essence of all things,but that, rather, it manifested itself in them throughdiverse ways. This problem of universals is ever themost vexed one among logicians., to such a degree, in-deed, that even Porphyry, writing in his Isagoge re-garding universals, dared not attempt a final pro-nouncement thereon, saying rather: This is the deepestof all problems of its kind. Wherefore it followed thatwhen William had first revised and then finally aban-doned altogether his views on this one subject, his lec-turing sank into such a state of negligent reasoning thatit could scarce be called lecturing on the science of dia-lectics at all; it was as if all his science had been boundup in this one question of the nature of universals.Thus itcame about thatmy teachingwon such strength

and authority that even those who before had clungmost vehemently to my former master, and most bit-terly attacked my doctrines, now flocked to my school.The very man who had succeeded to my master's chairin the Paris school offered me his post, in order that hemight put himself under my tutelage along with all therest, and this in the very place where of old his masterand mine had reigned. And when, in so short a time, mymaster saw me directing the study of dialectics there, itis not easy to find words to tell with what envy he wasconsumed or with what pain he was tormented. He could

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Historia Calamitatumnot long, in truth,, bear the anguish ofwhat he felt to behis wrongs, and shrewdly he attacked me that he mightdrive me forth. And because there was nought in myconduct whereby he could come at me openly, he triedto steal away the school by launching the vilest cal-umnies against him who had yielded his post to me, andby putting in his place a certain rival of mine. So then Ireturned to Melun, and set upmy school there as before;and the more openly his envy pursued me, the greaterwas the authority it conferred upon me. Even so heldthe poet: Jealousy aims at the peaks; the winds stormtheloftiestsummits. (Ovid: Remedy forLove, 1,369.)Not long thereafter, when William became aware ofthe fact that almost all his students were holding grave

doubts as to his religion, and were whispering earnestlyamong themselves about his conversion, deeming thathe had by no means abandoned this world, he withdrewhimself and his brotherhood, together with his students,to a certain estate far distant from the city. Forthwith Ireturned from Melun to Paris, hoping for peace fromhim in the future. But since, as I have said, he had causedmy place to be occupied by a rival of mine, I pitched thecamp, as it were, ofmy school outside the city on MontSte. Genevieve. Thus I was as one laying siege to himwho had taken possession ofmy post. No sooner had mymaster heard of this than he brazenly returned posthaste to the city, bringing back with him such studentsas he could, and reinstating his brotherhood in their for-


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Historia Galamitatummer monastery, much as If he would free his soldiery,whom he had deserted., from my blockade. In truth,though, if it was his purpose to bring them succour, hedid nought but hurt them. Before that time my rivalhad indeed had a certain number of students, of one sortand another, chiefly by reason of his lectures on Priscian,in which he was considered of great authority. After ourmaster had returned, however, he lost nearly all of thesefollowers, and thus was compelled to give up the direc-tion of the school. Not long thereafter, apparently de-spairing further of worldly fame, he was converted tothe monastic life.

Following the return of our master to the city, thecombats in disputation which my scholars waged bothwith him himself and with his pupils, and the successeswhich fortune gave to us, and above all to me, in thesewars, you have long since learned of through your ownexperience. The boast of Ajax, though I speak it moretemperately, I still am bold enough to make:

. . . if fain you would learn nowHow victory crowned the battle, by him wasI never vanquished/'

(Ovid, Metamorphoses, XIII, 89.)But even were I to be silent, the fact proclaims itself,and its outcome reveals the truth regarding it.While these things were happening, it became need-

ful for me again to repair to my old home, by reason ofmy dear mother, Lucia, for after the conversion of my

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Historia Calamitatumfather, Berengarius, to the monastic life, she so orderedher affairs as to do likewise. When all this had beencompleted, I returned to France, above all in order thatI might study theology,, since now my oft-mentionedteacher,William,,was active in the episcopate of Chalons.In this field of learning Anselm of Laon, who was histeacher therein, had for long years enjoyed the greatestrenown.

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CHAPTER IIIOF HOW HE CAME TO LAON TO SEEK ANSELM

AS TEACHERSOUGHT out, therefore,, this same venerable man,whose fame,, in truth, was more the result of long-

established custom than of the potency of his own talentor intellect. If any one came to him impelled by doubt onany subject, he went away more doubtful still. He waswonderful, indeed, in the eyes of these who only listenedto him, but those who asked him questions perforce heldhim as nought. He had a miraculous flow of words, butthey were contemptible in meaning and quite void ofreason. When he kindled a fire, he filled his house withsmoke and illumined it not at all. He was a tree whichseemed noble to those who gazed upon its leaves fromafar, but to those who came nearer and examined it moreclosely was revealed its barrenness. When, therefore, Ihad come to this tree that I

might pluckthe fruit there-

of, I discovered that it was indeed the fig tree which OurLord cursed (Matthew xxi, 19; Mark xi, 13), or thatancient oak to which Lucan likened Pompey, saying:

. , . he stands, the shade of a name oncemighty,

Like to the towering oak in the midst of thefruitful field.

(Lucan, Pharsalia, IV, 135.)It was not long before I made this discovery, and

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Historia Calamitatumstretched myself lazily in the shade of that same tree. Iwent to his lectures less and less often, a thing whichsome among his eminent followers took sorely to heart,because they interpreted it as a mark of contempt for soillustrious a teacher. Thenceforth they secretly soughtto influence him against me, and by their vile insinua-tions made me hated of him. It chanced, moreover, thatone day, after the exposition of certain texts, we scholarswere jesting among ourselves, and one of them, seekingto draw me out, asked me what I thought of the lectureson the Books of Scripture. I, who had as yet studied onlythe sciences, replied that following such lectures seemedto me most useful in so far as the salvation of the soulwas concerned, but that it appeared quite extraordinaryto me that educated persons should not be able to under-stand the sacred books simply by studying them them-selves, together with the glosses thereon, and withoutthe aid of any teacher. Most of those who were presentmocked at me, and asked whether I myself could do asI had said, or whether I would dare to undertake it. Ianswered that if they wished, I was ready to try it.Forthwith they cried out and jeered all the more. Welland good, said they; we agree to the test. Pick outand give us an exposition of some doubtful passage inthe Scriptures, so that we can put this boast of yoursto the proof. And they all chose that most obscureprophecy of Ezekiel.

I accepted the challenge, and invited them to attend


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Historia Calamitatuma lecture on the very next day. Whereupon they under-took to give me good advice,, saying that I should by nomeans make undue haste in so Important a matter, butthat I ought to devote a much longer space to workingout my exposition and offsetting my Inexperience bydiligent toil. To this I replied indignantly that it was mywont to win success, not by routine, but by ability. Iadded that I would abandon the test altogether unlessthey would agree not to put off their attendance at mylecture. In truth at this first lecture of mine only a fewwere present, for It seemed quite absurd to all of themthat I, hitherto so inexperienced in discussing the Scrip-tures, should attempt the thing so hastily. However,this lecture gave such satisfaction to all those who heardIt that they spread its praises abroad with notable en-thusiasm, and thus compelled me to continue my Inter-pretation of the sacred text. When word of this wasbruited about, those who had stayed away from the firstlecture came eagerly, some to the second and more tothe third, and all of them were eager to write down theglosses which I had begun on the first day, so as to havethem from the very beginning.

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CHAPTER IVOF THE PERSECUTION HE HAD FROM

His TEACHER ANSELM

Qow this venerable man ofwhom I have spoken wasacutely smitten with envy, and straightwayincited,as I have already mentioned, by the insinuations of sun-dry persons,, began to persecute me for my lecturing onthe Scriptures no less bitterly than my former master,,William,, had done for my work in philosophy. At thattime there were in this old man's school two who wereconsidered far to excel all the others: Alberic of Rheimsand Lotulphe the Lombard. The better opinion these twoheld of themselves, the more they were incensed againstme. Chiefly at their suggestion, as it afterwards tran-spired, yonder venerable coward had the impudence toforbid me to carry on any further in his school the workofpreparing glosses which I had thus begun. The pretexthe alleged was that if by chance in the course of thiswork I should write anything containing blunders aswas likely enough in view of my lack of training thething might be imputed to him. When this came to theears of his scholars, they were filled with indignation atso

undisguiseda manifestation of

spite,the like ofwhich

had never been directed against any one before. Themore obvious this rancourbecame, themore it redoundedto my honour, and his persecution did nought save tomake me more famous.


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CHAPTER VOF How HE RETURNED TO PARIS AND FINISHEDTHE GLOSSES WHICH HE HAD BEGUN AT LAON

aND so > after a few days, I returned to Paris, and therefor several years I peacefully directed the schoolwhich formerly had been destined for me, nay, evenoffered to me, but from which I had been driven out. Atthe very outset ofmy work there, I set about completingthe glosses on Ezekiel which I had begun at Laon. Theseproved so satisfactory to all who read them that theycame to believe me no less adept in lecturing on theol-ogy than I had proved myself to be in the field of philoso-^phy. Thus my school was notably increased in size byreason ofmy lectures on subjects of both these kinds, andthe amount of financial profit as well as glory which itbrought me cannot be concealed from you, for the matterwas widely talked of. But prosperity always puffs up thefoolish, and worldly comfort enervates the soul, render-ing it an easy prey to carnal temptations. Thus I, who bythis time had come to regard myself as the only philoso-pher remaining in the whole world, and had ceased tofear any further disturbance ofmy peace, began to loosenthe rein on my desires, although hitherto I had alwayslived in the utmost continence. And the greater progressI made in my lecturing on philosophy or theology, themore I departed alike from the practice of the philoso-phers and the spirit of the divines in the uncleanness of


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Historia Calamitatummy life. For it is well known, methinks, that philoso-phers, and still more those who have devoted their livesto arousing the love of sacred study, have been strongabove all else in the beauty of chastity.Thus did it come to pass that while I was utterly ab-sorbed in pride and sensuality, divine grace, the cure forboth diseases, was forced upon me, even though I, for-sooth, would fain have shunned it. First was I punishedformy sensuality, and then for my pride. Formy sensu-ality I lost those things whereby I practiced it; for mypride, engendered in me by my knowledge of lettersand it is even as the Apostle said: Knowledge puffethitself up (i Cor. viii, i) I knew the humiliation ofseeing burned the very book in which I most gloried.And now it is my desire that you should know the storiesof these two happenings, understanding them more trulyfrom learning the very facts than from hearing what isspoken of them, and in the order in which they cameabout. Because I had ever held in abhorrence the foul-ness of prostitutes, because I had diligently kept myselffrom all excesses and from association with the womenof noble birth who attended the school, because I knewso little of the common talk of ordinary people, perverseand subtly flattering chance gave birth to an occasionfor casting me lightly down from the heights ofmy ownexaltation. Nay, in such case not even divine goodnesscould redeem onewho, havingbeen so proud,was broughtto such shame, were it not for the blessed gift of grace.

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VIOF How, BROUGHT Low BY His LOVE FOR HELOISE,

HE WAS WOUNDED IN BODY AND SOUL

Qow there dwelt in that same city of Paris a certainyoung girl named Helo'ise, the niece of a canon whowas called Fulbert. Her uncle's love for her was equalledonly by his desire that she should have the best educationwhich he could possibly procure for her. Of no meanbeauty,, she stood out above all by reason ofherabundantknowledge of letters. Now this virtue is rare amongwomen, and for that very reason it doubly graced themaiden, and made her the most worthy of renown inthe entire kingdom. It was this young girl whom I, aftercarefullyconsidering all those qualities which are wont toattract lovers, determined to unite with myself in thebonds of love, and indeed the thing seemed to me veryeasy to be done. So distinguished was my name, and Ipossessed such advantages of youth and comeliness, thatno matter what woman I might favour with my love, Idreaded rejection of none. Then, too, I believed that Icould win the maiden's consent all the more easily byreason of her knowledge of letters and her zeal therefor;so, even if we were parted., we might yet be together inthought with the aid of written messages. Perchance,too, we might be able to write more boldly than wecould speak, and thus at all times could we live in joy-ous intimacy.


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Historia CalamitatumThus., utterly aflame with my passion for this maiden,

I sought to discover means whereby I might have dailyand familiar speech with her, thereby the more easily towin her consent. For this purpose I persuaded the girl'suncle, with the aid of some of his friends,, to take me intohis household for he dwelt hard by my school in re-turn for the payment of a small sum. My pretext forthis was that the care ofmy own household was a serioushandicap to my studies, and likewise burdened me withan expense far greater than I could afford. Now, he wasa man keen in avarice, and likewise he was most desirousfor his niece that her study of letters should ever go for-ward, so, for these two reasons, I easily won his consentto the fulfillment ofmy wish, for he was fairly agape formy money, and at the same time believed that his niecewould vastly benefit by my teaching. More even thanthis, by his own earnest entreaties he fell in with my de-sires beyond anything I had dared to hope, opening theway for my love; for he entrusted her wholly to myguidance, beggingme to give her instruction whensoeverI might be free from the duties ofmy school, no matterwhether by day or by night, and to punish her sternly ifever I should find her negligent of her tasks. In all thisthe man's simplicity was nothing short of astounding tome; I should not have been more smitten with wonder ifhe had entrusted a tender lamb to the care of a ravenouswolf. When he had thus given her into my charge, notalone to be taught but even to be disciplined, what had he


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Historia Calamitatumdone save to give free scope to my desires, and to offermeevery opportunity,, even if I had not sought it, to bendher to my will with threats and blows if I failed to do sowith caresses ? There were, however, two things whichparticularly served to allay any foul suspicion : his ownlove for his niece, and my former reputation for conti-nence.Why should I say more? We were united first in the

dwelling that sheltered our love, and then in the heartsthat burned with it. Under the pretext ofstudy we spentour hours in the happiness of love, and learning held outto us the secret opportunities that our passion craved.Our speech was more of love than of the books which layopen before us; our kisses far outnumbered our reasonedwords. Our hands sought less the book than each other'sbosoms; love drew our eyes together far more than thelesson drew them to the pages of our text. In order thatthere might be no suspicion, there were, indeed, some-times blows, but love gave them, not anger; they werethe marks, not of wrath, but of a tenderness surpassingthe most fragrant balm in sweetness. What followed ? Nodegree in love's progress was left untried by our passion,and if love itself could imagine any wonder as yet un-known, we discovered it. And our inexperience of suchdelights made us all the more ardent in our pursuit ofthem, so that our thirst for one another was still un-quenched.

In measure as this passionate rapture absorbed me[18


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Historia Calamitatummore and more, I devoted ever less time to philosophyand to the work of the school. Indeed it became loath-some to me to go to the school or to linger there; thelabour,, moreover, was very burdensome,, since my nightswere vigils of love and my days of study. My lecturingbecame utterly careless and lukewarm; I did nothing be-cause of inspiration, but everything merely as a matterof habit. I had become nothing more than a reciter ofmyformer discoveries, and though I still wrote poems, theydealt with love, not with the secrets of philosophy. Ofthese songs you yourself well know how some have be-come widely known and have been sung in many lands,chiefly, methinks, by those who delighted in the thingsof this world. As for the sorrow, the groans, the lamen-tations of my students when they perceived the preoc-cupation, nay, rather the chaos, of my mind, it is hardeven to imagine them.A thing so manifest could deceive only a few, no one,methinks, save him whose shame it chiefly bespoke, thegirl's uncle, Fulbert. The truth was often enough hintedto him, and by many persons, but he could not believeit> partly, as I have said, by reason of his boundless lovefor his niece, and partly because of the well-known con-tinence ofmy previous life. Indeed we do not easily sus-pect shame in those whom we most cherish, nor can therebe the blot of foul suspicion on devoted love. Of this St.Jerome in his epistle to Sabinianus (Epist. 48) says: Weare wont to be the last to know the evils of our own

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Historia Calamitatumhouseholds,, and to be Ignorant of the sins ofour childrenand our wives., though our neighbours sing them aloud.But no matter how slow a matter may be in disclosingitself, it is sure to come forth at last, nor is it easy tohide from one what is known to all. So, after the lapse ofseveral months, did it happen with us. Oh, how greatwas the uncle's griefwhen he learned the truth, and howbitter was the sorrow of the lovers when we were forcedto part With what shame was I overwhelmed,, withwhat contrition smitten because of the blow which hadfallen on her I loved., and what a tempest ofmisery burstover her by reason ofmy disgrace Each grieved most,not for himself, but for the other. Each sought to allay,not his own sufferings, but those of the one he loved. Thevery sundering of our bodies served but to link our soulscloser together; the plentitude of the love which wasdenied to us inflamed us more than ever. Once the firstwildness of shame had passed, it left us more shamelessthan before, and as shame died within us the cause of itseemed to us ever more desirable. And so it chanced withus as, in the stories that the poets tell, it once happenedwith Mars and Venus when they were caught together.

It was not long after this that Heloi'se found that shewas pregnant, and of this she wrote to me in the utmostexultation, at the same time asking me to consider whathad best be done. Accordingly, on a night when her un-cle was absent, we carried out the plan we had deter-mined on, and I stole her secretly away from her uncle's

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Historia Calamitatumhouse, sending her without delay to my own country.She remained there with my sister until she gave birthto a son, whom she named Astrolabe. Meanwhile heruncle., after his return, was almost mad with grief; onlyone who had then seen him could rightly guess the burn-ing agony of his sorrow and the bitterness of his shame.What steps to take against me, or what snares to set forme, he did not know. If he should kill me or do me somebodily hurt, he feared greatly lest his dear-loved nieceshould be made to suffer for it among my kinsfolk. Hehad no power to seize me and imprison me somewhereagainst my will, though I make no doubt he would havedone so quickly enough had he been able or dared, forI had taken measures to guard against any such attempt.At length, however, in pity for his boundless grief, and

bitterly blaming myself for the suffering which my lovehad brought upon him through the baseness of the de-ception I had practiced, I went to him to entreat his for-giveness, promising to make any amends that he himselfmight decree. I pointed out that what had happenedcould not seem incredible to any one who had ever feltthe power of love, or who remembered how, from thevery beginning of the human race, women had cast downeven the noblest men to utter ruin. And in order to makeamends even beyond his extremest hope, I offered tomarry her whom I had seduced, provided only the thingcould be kept secret, so that I might suffer no loss ofreputation thereby. To this he gladly assented, pledging


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Historia Calamitatumhis own faith and that of his kindred, and sealing withkisses the pact which I had sought of him and all thisthat he might the more easily betray me.

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CHAPTER VIIOF THE ARGUMENTS OF HELOISE AGAINST WEDLOCKOF How NONE THE LESS HE MADE HER His WIFEHORTHWITH

I repaired tomyown country,, and broughtback thence my mistress, that I might make her

my wife. She, however, most violently disapproved ofthis, and for two chief reasons: the danger thereof, andthe disgrace which itwould bringupon me. She swore thather uncle would never be appeased by such satisfactionas this, as, indeed, afterwards proved only too true. Sheasked how she could ever glory in me if she should makeme thus inglorious, and should shame herself along withme. What penalties, she said, would the world rightly de-mand of her if she should rob it of so shining a lightWhat curses would follow such a loss to the Church,what tears among the philosophers would result fromsuch a marriage Howunfitting, how lamentable itwouldbe for me, whom nature had made for the whole world,to devote myself to one woman solely, and to subjectmyself to such humiliation She vehemently rejected thismarriage, which she felt would be in every way ignomin-ious and burdensome to me.

Besides dwelling thus on the disgrace to me, she re-minded me of the hardships ofmarried life, to the avoid-ance of which the Apostle exhorts us, saying: Art thouloosed from, a wife? seek not a wife. But and if thoumarry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she


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Historia Calamitatumhath not sinned. Nevertheless such shall have trouble inthe flesh: but I spare you (i Cor. vii, 27). And again:But I would have you to be free from cares (i Cor.vii, 32). But if I would heed neither the counsel of theApostle nor the exhortations of the saints regarding thisheavy yoke of matrimony, she bade me at least con-sider the advice of the philosophers., and weigh carefullywhat had been written on this subject either by them orconcerning their lives. Even the saints themselves haveoften and earnestly spoken on this subject for the pur-pose of warning us. Thus St. Jerome, in his first bookagainst Jovinianus, makes Theophrastus set forth ingreat detail the intolerable annoyances and the endlessdisturbances of married life, demonstrating with themost convincing arguments that no wise man shouldever have a wife, and concluding his reasons for thisphilosophic exhortation with these words: Who amongChristians would not be overwhelmed by such argumentsas these advanced by Theophrastus?Again, in the same work, St. Jerome tells how Cicero,

asked by Hircius after his divorce of Terentia whetherhe would marry the sister of Hircius, replied that hewould do no such thing, saying that he could not devotehimself to a wife and to philosophy at the same time.Cicero does not, indeed, precisely speak of devotinghimself, but he does add that he did not wish to under-take anything which might rival his study of philosophyin its demands upon him.


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Historia CalamitatumThen, turning from the consideration of such hin-

drances to the study of philosophy, Heloi'se bade me ob-serve what were the conditions of honourable wedlock.What possible concord could there be between scholarsand domestics, between authors and cradles, betweenbooks or tablets and distaffs, between the stylus or thepen and the spindle? What man, intent on his religiousor philosophical meditations, can possibly endure thewhining of children, the lullabies of the nurse seeking toquiet them, or the noisy confusion of family life? Whocan endure the continual untidiness of children? Therich, you may reply, can do this, because they have pal-aces or houses containing many rooms, and because theirwealth takes no thought of expense and protects themfrom daily worries. But to this the answer is that thecondition of philosophers is by no means that of thewealthy, nor can those whose minds are occupied withriches and worldly cares find time for religious or philo-sophical study. For this reason the renowned philoso-phers of old utterly despised the world, fleeing from itsperils rather than reluctantly giving them up, and deniedthemselves all Its delights in order that they might re-pose in the embraces of philosophy alone. One of them,and the greatest of all, Seneca, In his advice to Lucillus,says: Philosophy is not a thing to be studied only Inhours of leisure; we must give up everything else todevote ourselves to it, for no amount of time is reallysufficient thereto (Epist. 73).


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Historia CalamitatumIt matters little, she pointed out, whether one aban-

dons the study ofphilosophy completely or merely inter-rupts it, for it can never remain at the point where it wasthus interrupted. All other occupations must be resisted;it is vain to seek to adjust life to include them, and theymust simply be eliminated. This view is maintained, forexample, in the love ofGod by those among us who aretruly called monastics, and in the love of wisdom by allthose who have stood out among men as sincere philos-ophers. For in every race, gentiles or Jews or Christians,there have always been a few who excelled their fellowsin faith or in the purity of their lives, and who were setapart from the multitude by their continence or by theirabstinence from worldly pleasures.Among the Jews of old there were the Nazarites, who

consecrated themselves to the Lord, some of them thesons of the prophet Elias and others the followers ofEliseus, the monks of whom, on the authority of St.Jerome (Epist. 4 and 13), we read in the Old Testament.More recently there were the three philosophical sectswhich Josephus defines in his Book of Antiquities (xviii,2), calling them the Pharisees, the Sadducees and theEssenes. In our times, furthermore, there are the monkswho imitate either the communal life of the Apostlesor the earlier and solitary life of John. Among the gen-tiles there are, as has been said, the philosophers. Didthey not apply the name of wisdom or philosophy asmuch to the religion of life as to the pursuit of learning,


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Hisforia Calamitatumas we find from the origin of the word itself, and like-wise from the testimony of the saints ?There is a passage on this subject in the eighth bookof St. Augustine's City of God/' wherein he distin-guishes between the various schools ofphilosophy. TheItalian school, he says, had as its founder Pythagorasof Samos, who, it is said, originated the very word phi-losophy/ Before his time those who were regarded asconspicuous for the praiseworthiness of their lives werecalled wise men, but he, on being asked of his profession,replied that he was a philosopher, that is to say a studentor a lover of wisdom, because it seemed to him undulyboastful to call himself a wise man. In this passage,therefore, when the phrase conspicuous for the praise-worthiness of their lives is used, it is evident that thewise, in other words the philosophers, were so called lessbecause of their erudition than by reason of their virtu-ous lives. In what sobriety and continence these menlived it is not for me to prove by illustration, lest Ishould seem to instruct Minerva herself.Now, she added, if laymen and gentiles, bound by no

profession of religion, lived after this fashion, whatought you, a cleric and a canon, to do in order not toprefer base voluptuousness to your sacred duties, to pre-vent this Charybdis from sucking you down headlong,and to save yourselffrom being plunged shamelessly andirrevocably into such filth as this ? If you care nothingfor your privileges as a cleric, at least uphold your dignity


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Historia Calamitatumas a philosopher. If you scorn the reverence due to God,let regard for your reputation temper your shameless-ness. Remember that Socrates was chained to a wife, andby what a filthy accident he himself paid for this blot onphilosophy, in order that others thereafter might bemade more cautious by his example. Jerome thus men-tions this affair, writing about Socrates in his first bookagainst Jovinianus : Once when he was withstanding astorm of reproaches which Xantippe was hurling at himfrom an upper story, he was suddenly drenched with foulslops; wiping his head, he said only, 'I knew there wouldbe a shower after all that thunder/

Her final argument was that it would be dangerousfor me to take her back to Paris, and that it would be farsweeter for her to be calledmy mistress than to be knownasmy wife; nay, too, that this would be more honourablefor me as well. In such case, she said, love alone wouldhold me to her, and the strength of the marriage chainwould not constrain us. Even if we should by chance beparted from time to time, the joy of our meetings wouldbe all the sweeter by reason of its rarity. But when shefound that she could not convince me or dissuade mefrom my folly by these and like arguments, and becauseshe could not bear to offend me, with grievous sighs andtears she made an end of her resistance, saying: Thenthere is no more left but this, that in our doom the sor-row yet to come shall be no less than the love wetwo have already known/' Nor in this, as now the

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Historia Calamitatumasleep in a secret room in my lodgings, they broke inwith the help of one of my servants., whom they hadbribed. There they had vengeance on me with a mostcruel and most shameful punishment, such as astoundedthe whole world, for they cut off those parts ofmy bodywith which I had done that which was the cause of theirsorrow. This done, straightway they fled, but two ofthem were captured, and suffered the loss of their eyesand their genital organs. One of these two was the afore-said servant, who, even while he was still in my service,had been led by his avarice to betray me.

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CHAPTER VIIIOF THE SUFFERING OF His BODY OF How HEBECAME A MONK IN THE MONASTERY OF ST.DENIS AND HELOISE A NUN AT ARGENTEUILHEN morning came the whole city was assembled be-fore my dwelling. It is difficult, nay, impossible, for

words of mine to describe the amazement which bewil-dered them, the lamentations they uttered, the uproarwith which they harassed me, or the grief with whichthey increased my own suffering. Chiefly the clerics, andabove all my scholars, tortured me with their intolerablelamentations and outcries, so that I suffered more in-tensely from their compassion than from the pain ofmywound. In truth I felt the disgrace more than the hurt tomy body, and was more afflicted with shame than withpain. My incessant thought was of the renown in whichI had so much delighted, now brought low, nay, utterlyblotted out, so swiftly by an evil chance. I saw, too, howjustly God had punished me in that very part of mybody whereby I had sinned. I perceived that there wasindeed justice in my betrayal by him whom I had myselfalready betrayed; and then I thought how eagerly myrivals would seize upon this manifestation ofjustice, howthis disgrace would bring bitter and enduring grief to mykindred and my friends, and how the tale of this amaz-


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Historia Calamitatuming outrage would spread to the very ends of the earth.What path lay open to me thereafter? How could Iever again hold up my head among men,, when every

finger should be pointed at me in scorn, every tonguespeak my blistering shame, and when I should be a mon-strous spectacle to all eyes? I was overwhelmed by theremembrance that., according to the dread letter of thelaw., God holds eunuchs in such abomination that menthus maimed are forbidden to enter a church, even as theunclean and filthy; nay, even beasts in such plight werenot acceptable as sacrifices. Thus in Leviticus (xxii, 24)is it said: Ye shall not offer unto the Lord that whichhath its stones bruised, or crushed, or broken, or cut.And in Deuteronomy (xxiii, i), He that is wounded inthe stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall notenter into the congregation of the Lord.

I must confess that inmy misery it was the overwhelm-ing sense of my disgrace rather than any ardour for con-version to the religious life that drove me to seek theseclusion of the monastic cloister. Heloi'sehad already, atmy bidding, taken the veil and entered a convent. Thusit was that we both put on the sacred garb, I in the abbeyof St. Denis, and she in the convent of Argenteuil, ofwhich I have already spoken. She, I remember well, whenher fond friends sought vainly to deter her from sub-mitting her fresh youth to the heavy and almost intol-erable yoke ofmonastic life, sobbing and weeping repliedin the words of Cornelia:

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Historia Calamitatum. . . O husband most noble,Who ne'er shouldst have shared my couch Hasfortune such powerTo smite so lofty a head ? Why then was I weddedOnly to bring thee to woe ? Receive now my sorrow.The price I so gladly pay.

(Lucan, Pharsalia, viii, 94.)With these words on her lips did she go forthwith to

the altar, and lifted therefrom the veil, which had beenblessed by the bishop, and before them all she took thevows of the religious life. For my part, scarcely had I re-covered from my wound when clerics sought me in greatnumbers, endlessly beseeching both my abbot and memyself that now, since I was done with learning for thesake of gain or renown, I should turn to it for the solelove of God. They bade me care diligently for the talentwhich God had committed to my keeping (Matthew,xxv, 15), since surely He would demand it back from mewith interest. It was their plea that, inasmuch as of oldI had laboured chiefly in behalf of the rich, I should nowdevote myself to the teaching of the poor. Therein aboveall should I perceive how it was the hand of God thathad touched me, when I should devote my life to thestudy of letters in freedom from the snares of the fleshand withdrawn from the tumultuous life of this world.Thus, in truth, should I become a philosopher less of thisworld than of God.The abbey, however, to which I had betaken myself

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Historia Calamitatumwas utterly worldly and in its life quite scandalous. Theabbot himself was as far below his fellows in his way ofliving and in the foulness of his reputation as he wasabove them in priestly rank. This intolerable state ofthings I often and vehemently denounced, sometimesin private talk and sometimes publicly, but the onlyresult was that I made myself detested of them all. Theygladly laid hold of the daily eagerness ofmy students tohear me as an excuse whereby they might be rid of me;and finally, at the insistent urging of the students them-selves, and with the hearty consent of the abbot and therest of the brotherhood, I departed thence to a certainhut, there to teach in my wonted way. To this placesuch a throng ofstudents flocked that the neighbourhoodcould not afford shelter for them, nor the earth sufficientsustenance.

Here, as befitted my profession, I devoted myselfchiefly to lectures on theology, but I did not whollyabandon the teaching of the secular arts, to which I wasmore accustomed, and which was particularly demandedof me. I used the latter, however, as a hook, luring mystudents by the bait of learning to the study of the truephilosophy, even as the Ecclesiastical History tells ofOrigen, the greatest of all Christian philosophers. Sinceapparently the Lord had gifted me with no less persua-siveness in expounding the Scriptures than in lecturingon secular subjects, the number ofmy students in thesetwo courses began to increase greatly, and the attendance

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Historia Calamitatumat all the other schools was correspondingly diminished.Thus I aroused the envy and hatred of the other teach-ers. Those who sought to belittle me in every possibleway took advantage ofmy absence to bring two princi-pal charges against me: first, that it was contrary to themonastic profession to be concerned with the study ofsecular books ; and, second, that I had presumed to teachtheology without ever having been taught therein my-self. This they did in order that my teaching of everykind might be prohibited, and to this end they contin-ually stirred up bishops, archbishops, abbots and what-ever other dignitaries of the Church they could reach.

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CHAPTER IXOF His BOOK ON THEOLOGY AND His PERSECUTION

AT THE HANDS OF His FELLOW STUDENTSOF THE COUNCIL AGAINST HIM

XT so happened that at the outset I devoted myself toanalysing the basis of our faith through illustra-tions based on human understanding, and I wrote formystudents a certain tract on the unity and trinity ofGod.This I did because they were always seeking for rationaland philosophical explanations, asking rather for reasonsthey could understand than for mere words, saying thatit was futile to utter words which the intellect could notpossibly follow, that nothing could be believed unless itcould first be understood, and that it was absurd for anyone to preach to others a thing which neither he himselfnor those whom he sought to teach could comprehend.Our Lord Himself maintained this same thing when Hesaid: They are blind leaders of the blind (Matthew,xv, 14).Now, a great many people saw and read this tract,

and it became exceedingly popular, its clearness appeal-ing particularly to all who sought information on thissubject. And since the questions involved are generallyconsidered the most difficult of all, their complexity istaken as the measure of the subtlety ofhim who succeedsin answering them. As a result, my rivals became furi-

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Historia Galamitatumously angry, and summoned a council to take actionagainst me, the chief instigators therein being my twointriguing enemies of former days, Alberic andLotulphe.These two, now that bothWilliam and Anselm, our erst-while teachers, were dead, were greedy to reign in theirstead, and, so to speak, to succeed them as heirs. Whilethey were directing the school at Rheims, they managedby repeated hints to stir up their archbishop, Rodolphe,against me, for the purpose of holding a meeting, orrather an ecclesiastical council, at Soissons, providedthey could secure the approval of Conon, Bishop ofPraeneste, at that time papal legate in France. Their planwas to summon me to be present at this council, bring-ing with me the famous book I had written regarding theTrinity. In all this, indeed, they were successful, and thething happened according to their wishes.

Before I reached Soissons, however, these two rivals ofmine so foully slandered me with both the clergy and thepublic that on the day of my arrival the people camenear to stoning me and the few students ofmine who hadaccompanied me thither. The cause of their anger wasthat they had been led to believe that I had preachedand written to prove the existence of three gods. Nosooner had I reached the city, therefore, than I wentforthwith to the legate; to him I submitted my book forexamination and judgment, declaring that if I had writ-ten anything repugnant to the Catholic faith, I was quiteready to correct it or otherwise to make satisfactory

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Historia Calamitatumamends. The legate directed me to refer my book to thearchbishop and to those same two rivals of mine, to theend that my accusers might also be my judges. So in mycase was fulfilled the saying: Even our enemies are ourjudges (Deut. xxxii, 31).These three, then., took my book and pawed it over

and examined it minutely,, but could find nothing thereinwhich they dared to use as the basis for a public accusa-tion against me. Accordingly they put off the condemna-tion of the book until the close of the council, despitetheir eagerness to bring it about. For my part, every daybefore the council convened I publicly discussed theCatholic faith in the light of what I had written, and allwho heard me were enthusiastic in their approval alikeof the frankness and the logic of my words. When thepublic and the clergy had thus learned something of thereal character ofmy teaching, they began to say to oneanother: Behold, now he speaks openly, and no onebrings any charge against him. And this council, sum-moned, as we have heard, chiefly to take action uponhis case, is drawing toward its end. Did the judges real-ize that the error might be theirs rather than his?As a result of all this, my rivals grew more angry day

by day. On one occasion Alberic, accompanied by someof his students, came to me for the purpose of intimidat-ing me, and, after a few bland words, said that he wasamazed at something he had found in my book, to theeffect that, although God had begotten God, I denied

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Historia Calamitatumthat God had begotten Himself, since there was only oneGod. I answered unhesitatingly: I can give you an ex-planation of this if you wish it. Nay/ 7 he replied, Icare nothing for human explanation or reasoning in suchmatters, but only for the words of authority/' Verywell/' I said; turn the pages of my book and you willfind the authority likewise. The book was at hand,, forhe had brought it with him. I turned to the passage Ihad in mind., which he had either not discovered or elsepassed over as containing nothing injurious to me. Andit was God's will that I quickly found what I sought.This was the following sentence, under the headingAugustine, On the Trinity, Book I : Whosoever be-lieves that it is within the power ofGod to beget Himselfis sorely in error; this power is not in God, neither is itin any created thing, spiritual or corporeal. For there isnothing that can give birth to itself.When those of his followers who were present heardthis, they were amazed and much embarrassed. He him-self, in order to keep his countenance, said: Certainly,I understand all that. Then I added: What I have tosay further on this subject is by no means new, but ap-parently it has nothing to do with the case at issue, sinceyou have asked for the word of authority only, and notfor explanations. If, however, you care to consider logicalexplanations, I am prepared to demonstrate that, ac-cording to Augustine's statement, you have yourselffallen into a heresy in believing that a father can pos-

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Historia Calamitatumabove all that we have found nothing in this book of histhat lies before us whereon any open accusation can bebased. Indeed it is true, asJerome says : 'Fortitude openlydisplayed always creates rivals, and the lightning strikesthe highest peaks/ Have a care, then, lest by violent ac-tion you only increase his fame, and lest we do more hurtto ourselves through envy than to him through justice.A false report, as that same wise man reminds us, iseasily crushed, and a man's later life gives testimony asto his earlier deeds. If, then, you are disposed to takecanonical action against him, his doctrine or his writingsmust be brought forward as evidence, and he must havefree opportunity to answer his questioners. In that

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Peter Abelard ~ the Story of My Misfortunes

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