§ 102. The Twelfth Century.In the 12th century dialectic and mysticism are seen contending for the mastery in the department of theology. On the one side stands Abælard, in whom the sceptical dialectic had its most eminent representative. Over against him stands St. Bernard as his most resolute opponent. Theological dialectic afterwards assumed a pre-eminently dogmatic and ecclesiastical character, entering into close relationship with mysticism. While this movement was mainly carried on in France, where the University of Paris attracted teachers and scholars from all lands, it passed over from thence into Germany, where Provost Gerhoch and his brother Arno gave it their active support in opposition to that destructive sort of dialectic that was then spreading around them. Although the combination of dogmatic dialectic and mysticism had for a long time no formal recognition, it ultimately secured the approval of the highest ecclesiastical authorities.
In the 12th century dialectic and mysticism are seen contending for the mastery in the department of theology. On the one side stands Abælard, in whom the sceptical dialectic had its most eminent representative. Over against him stands St. Bernard as his most resolute opponent. Theological dialectic afterwards assumed a pre-eminently dogmatic and ecclesiastical character, entering into close relationship with mysticism. While this movement was mainly carried on in France, where the University of Paris attracted teachers and scholars from all lands, it passed over from thence into Germany, where Provost Gerhoch and his brother Arno gave it their active support in opposition to that destructive sort of dialectic that was then spreading around them. Although the combination of dogmatic dialectic and mysticism had for a long time no formal recognition, it ultimately secured the approval of the highest ecclesiastical authorities.
§ 102.1.The Contest on French Soil.The Dialectic Side of the Gulf.—Peter Abælard, superior to all his contemporaries in acuteness, learning, dialectic power, and bold freethinking, but proud and disputatious, was born at Palais in Brittany inA.D.1079. His first teacher in philosophy was Roscelin. Afterwards he entered the school of William of Champeaux at Paris, the most celebrated dialectician of his times. Having defeated his master in a public disputation, he founded a school at Melun near Paris, where thousands of pupils flocked to him. In order to be nearer Paris, he moved his school to Corbeil; then to the very walls of Paris on Mount St. Genoveva; and ceased not to overwhelm William with humiliations, until his old teacher retreated from the field. In order to secure still more brilliant success, he began to study theology under the Schoolman Anselm of Laon. But very soon the ambitious scholar thought himself superior also to this master. Relying upon his dialectical endowments, he took a bet without further preparation to expound the difficult prophet Ezekiel. He did it indeed to the satisfaction of scholars, but Anselm refused to allow him to continue his lectures. Abælard now returned to Paris, where he gathered around him a great number of enthusiastic pupils. Canon Fulbert appointed him teacher of his beautiful and talented niece Heloise. He won her love, and they were secretly married. She then denied the marriage in order that he might not be debarred from the highest offices of the church. Persisting in this denial, her relatives dealt severely with her, and Abælard had her placed in the nunnery of Argenteuil. Fulbert in his fury had Abælard seized during the night and emasculated, so that he might be disqualified for ecclesiastical preferment. Overwhelmed with shame, he fled to the monastery of St. Denys, and there inA.D.1119 took the monastic vow. Heloise took the veil at Argenteuil. But even at St. Denys Abælard was obliged by the eager entreaties of former scholars to resume his lectures. His free and easy treatment of the church doctrine and his haughty spirit aroused many enemies against him, who at the Synod of Soissons inA.D.1121 compelled him before the papal legate to cast into the fire his treatiseDe Unitate et Trinitate divina, and had him committed to a monastic prison. By the intercession of some friends he was soon again set free, and returned to St. Denys. But when he made the discovery that Dionysius at Paris was not the Areopagite the persecution of the monks drove him into a forest near Troyes. There too his scholars followed him and made him resume his lectures. His colony grew up under his hands into the famous abbey of the Paraclete. Finding even there no rest, he made over the abbey of the Paraclete to Heloise, who had not been able to come to terms with her insubordinate nuns at Argenteuil. He himself now became abbot of the monastery of St. Gildasius at Ruys in Brittany, and, after in vain endeavouring for eight years to restore the monastic discipline, he again inA.D.1136 resumed his office of teacher and lectured at St. Genoveva near Paris with great success. He wrote an ethical treatise, “Scito te ipsum,” issued a new and enlarged edition of hisTheologia christiana, now extant as the incompleteIntroductio ad theologiamin three books, and composed aDialogus inter Philosophum, Judæum et Christianum, in which the heathen philosophers and poets of antiquity are ranked almost as high as the prophets and apostles. InSic et Non, “Yes and No,” a collection of extracts from the Fathers under the various heads of doctrine contradictory of one another, the traditional theology was held up to contempt.§ 102.2.Abælardmaintained, in opposition to the Augustinian-Anselmian theory, that faith preceded knowledge, that only what we comprehend is to be believed. He did indeed intend that his dialectic should be used not for the overthrow but for the establishment of the church doctrine. He proceeded, however, from doubt as the principle of all knowledge, regarding all church dogmas as problems which must be proved before they can be believed:Dubitando enim ad inquisitionem venimus, inquirendo veritatem percipimus. He thus reduced faith to a mere probability and measured the content of faith by the rule of subjective reason. This was most glaring in the case of the trinitarian doctrine, which with him approached Sabellian modalism. God as omnipotent is to be called Father, as all wise the Son, as loving and gracious the Spirit; and so the incarnation becomes a merely temporal and dynamic immanence of the Logos in the man Jesus. The significance of the ethical element in Christianity quite overshadowed that of the dogmatic. He taught that all fundamental truths of Christianity had been previously proclaimed by philosophers and poets of Greece and Rome, who were scarcely less inspired than the prophets and apostles, the special service of the latter consisting in giving currency to these truths among the uncultured. He turns with satisfaction from the theology of the Fathers to that of the apostles, and from that again to the religion of Jesus, whom he represents rather as a reformer introducing a pure morality than as a founder of a religious system.Setting aside Anselm’s theory of satisfaction, he regards the redemption and reconciliation of man as consisting in the awakening in sinful man, by means of the infinite love displayed by Christ’s teaching and example, by His life, sufferings and death upon the cross, a responding love of such fulness and power, that he is thereby freed from the dominion of sin and brought into the glorious liberty of the children of God.298—Abælard’s fame and following grew in a wonderful manner from day to day; but also powerful opponents dragged his heresies into light and vigorously combated them. The most important of these were the Cistercian monk William of Thierry and St. Bernard, who called attention to the dangerous tendency of his teaching. St. Bernard dealt personally with the heretic, but when he failed in converting him, he appeared inA.D.1141 at the Synod of Sens as his accuser. The synod condemned as heretical a series of statements culled from his writings by Bernard. Abælard appealed to the pope, but even his friends at Rome, among whom was Card. Guido de Castella, afterwards Pope Cœlestine II., could not close their eyes to his manifest heterodoxies. His friendship for Arnold of Brescia also told against him at Rome (§108, 7). Innocent II. therefore excommunicated Abælard and his supporters, condemned his writings to be burnt and himself to be confined in a monastery.Abælard found an asylum with the abbot Peter the Venerable of Clugny, who not only effected his reconciliation with Bernard, but also, on the ground of hisApologia s. Confessio fidei, in which he submitted to the judgment of the church, obtained permission from the pope to pass his last days in peace at Clugny. During this time he composed hisHist. calamitatum Abælardi, an epistolary autobiography, which, though not free from vanity and bitterness, is yet worthy to be ranked with Augustine’s “Confessions” for its unreserved self-accusation and for the depth of self-knowledge which it reveals. He died inA.D.1142, in the monastery of St. Marcellus at Chalons, where he had gone in quest of health. He was buried in the abbey of the Paraclete, where Heloise laid on his coffin the letter of absolution of Peter of Clugny.Twenty-two years later Heloise herself was laid in the same quiet resting place.299§ 102.3.The Mystic Side of the Gulf.—Abælard’s most famous opponent wasSt. Bernard of Clairvaux(§98, 1), born inA.D.1091 at Fontaines near Dijon in Burgundy, died inA.D.1153, a man of such extraordinary influence on his generation as the world seldom sees. Venerated as a miracle worker, gifted with an eloquence that carried everything before it (doctor mellifluus), he was the protector and reprover of the Vicar of God, the peacemaker among the princes, the avenger of every wrong. His genuine humility made him refuse all high places. His enthusiasm for the hierarchy did not hinder him from severely lashing clerical abuses. It was his word that roused the hearts of men throughout all Europe to undertake the second crusade, and that won many heretics and schismatics back to the bosom of the church. Having his conversation in heaven, leading a life of study, meditation, prayer, and ecstatic contemplation, he had also dominion over the earth, and by counsel, exhortation, and exercise of discipline exerted a quickening and healthful influence on all the relations of life. His theological tendency was in the direction of contemplative mysticism, with hearty submission to the doctrine of the church. Like Abælard, but from the opposite side, he came into conflict with the theory of Anselm; for the ideal of theology with him was not the development of faith into knowledge by means of thought, but rather the enlightenment of faith in the way of holiness. Bernard was not at all an enemy of science, but he rather saw in the dialectical hair-splitting of Abælard, which grudged not to cut down the main props of saving truth for the glorification of its own art, the overthrow of all true theology and the destruction of all the saving efficacy of faith. Heart theology founded on heart piety, nourished and strengthened by prayer, meditation, spiritual illumination and holiness, was for him the only true theology.Tantum Deus cognoscitur, quantum diligitur. Orando facilius quam disputando et dignius Deus quæritur et invenitur.The Bible was his favourite reading, and in the recesses of the forest he spent much time in prayer and study of the Scriptures. But in ecstasy (excessus) which consists in withdrawal from sensible phenomena and becoming temporarily dead to all earthly relations, the soul of the pious Christian is able to rise into the immediate presence of God, so that “more angelorum” it reaches a blessed vision and enjoyment of the Divine glory and that perfect love which loves itself and all creatures only in God. Yet even he confesses that this highest stage of abstraction was only attained unto by him occasionally and partially through God’s special grace. Bernard’s mysticism is most fully set forth in his eighty-six Sermons on the first two chapters of the Song of Solomon and in the tractDe diligendo Deo. In his controversy with Abælard he wrote hisTractatus de erroribus Petri Abælardi. To the department of dogmatics belongsDe gratia et libero arbitrio; and to that of history, the biography of his friend Malachias (§149, 5). The most important of his works isDe Consideratione, in 5 bks., in which with the affection of a friend, the earnestness of a teacher, and the authority of a prophet, he sets before Pope Eugenius III. the duties and dangers of his high position. He was also one of the most brilliant hymn writers of the Middle Ages. Alexander III. canonized him inA.D.1173, and Pius VIII. inA.D.1830 enrolled him among thedoctores ecclesiæ(§ 47, 22c).—Soon after the controversy with Abælard had been brought to a close by the condemnation of the church, Bernard was again called upon to resist the pretensions of dialectic. Gilbert de la Porrée (Porretanus), teacher of theology at Paris, who became Bishop of Poitiers inA.D.1142 and died inA.D.1154, in his commentary on the theological writings of Boëthius (§ 47, 23) ascribed reality to the universal term “God” in such a way that instead of a Trinity we seemed to have a Quaternity.At the Synod of Rheims,A.D.1148, under the presidency of Pope Eugenius III., Bernard appeared as accuser of Porretanus. Gilbert’s doctrine was condemned, but he himself was left unmolested.300§ 102.4.Bridging the Gulf from the Side of Mysticism.—At the school of the monastery of St. Victor in Paris, founded by William of Champeaux after his defeat at the hands of Abælard, an attempt was made during the first half of the 12th century to combine mysticism and dialectic in the treatment of theology. The peaceable heads of this school would indeed have nothing to do with the speculations of Abælard and his followers which tended to overthrow the mysteries of the faith. But the mystics of St. Victor made an important concession to the dialecticians by entering with as much energy upon the scientific study and construction of dogmatics as they did upon the devout examination of Scripture and mystical theology. They exhibited a speculative power and a profundity of thought that won the hearty admiration of the subtlest of the dialecticians. By far the most celebrated of this school wasHugo of St. Victor. Descended from the family of the Count of Halberstadt, born inA.D.1097, nearly related to St. Bernard, honoured by his contemporaries asAlter AugustinusorLingua Augustini, Hugo was one of the most profound thinkers of the Middle Ages. Having enjoyed a remarkably complete course of training, he was enthusiastically devoted to the pursuit of science, and, endowed with rich and deep spirituality, he exerted a most healthful and powerful influence upon his own and succeeding ages, although church and science had to mourn their loss by his early death inA.D.1141.In hisEruditio didascalicawe have in 3 bks. an encyclopædic sketch of all human knowledge as a preparation to the study of theology, and in other 3 bks. an introduction to the Bible and church history.301HisSumma sententiarumis an exposition of dogmatics on patristic lines, an ecclesiastical counterpart of Abælard’sSic et Non. The ripest and most influential of all his works, and the most independent, is hisDe sacramentis christ. fidei, in 2 bks., in which he treats of the whole contents of dogmatics from the point of view of the Sacraments (§104, 2). His exegetical works are less important and less original. His mysticism is set forthex professoin hisSoliloquium de arrha animæand in the series of three tracts,De arca morali,De arca mystica, andDe vanitate mundi. He makes Noah’s ark the symbol of the church as well as of the individual soul which journeys over the billows of the world to God, and, by the successive stages oflectio,cogitatio,meditatio,oratio, andoperatioreaches tocontemplatioor the vision of God.—Hugo’s pupil, and fromA.D.1162 the prior of his convent, was the ScotchmanRichard St. Victor, who died inA.D.1173. With less of the dialectic faculty than his master—though this too is shown in his 6 bks.De trinitate, a scholastic exposition of theCognitioorFides quæ creditur—he mainly devoted his energies to the development on the mystico-contemplative side of the “Affectus” orFides qua creditur, which aims at the vision and enjoyment of God. This he represents as reached by the three stages of contemplation, distinguished asmentis dilatatio,sublevatio, andalienatio. Among his mystical tracts, mostly mystical expositions of Scripture passages, the most important are,De præparatione animæ ad contemplationem, s. de xii. patriarchis, and the 4 bks.De gratia contemplationis s. de arca mystica. These are also known asBenjamin minorandB. major. In Richard there appears the first indications of a misunderstanding with the dialecticians which, among the late Victorines, and especially in the case of Walter of St. Victor, took the form of vehement hostility.§ 102.5.Bridging the Gulf from the Side of Dialectics.—After Abælard’s condemnation theological dialectics came more and more to be associated with the church doctrine and to approach more or less nearly to a friendly alliance with mysticism. Hugo’s writings did much to bring this about. The following are the most important Schoolmen of this tendency.The EnglishmanRobert Pulleyn, teacher at Oxford and Paris, afterwards cardinal and papal chancellor at Rome, who died aboutA.D.1150. His chief work isSententiarum Ll. VIII.Though very famous in its day, it was soon cast into the shade by the Lombard’s work.Petrus [Peter] Lombardus [Lombard], born at Novara in Lombardy, a scholar of Abælard, but powerfully influenced by St. Bernard and Hugo St. Victor, was Bishop of Paris fromA.D.1159 till his death inA.D.1164. He published a dogmatic treatise under the title ofSententiarum Ll. IV.; of which Bk. 1 treated of God, Bk. 2 of Creatures, Bk. 3 of Redemption, Bk. 4 of the Sacraments and the Last Things. For centuries this was the textbook in theological seminaries and won for its author the designation ofMagister Sententiarum. He himself compared this gift laid on the altar of the church to the widow’s mite, but the book attained a place of supreme importance in mediæval theology, had innumerable commentaries written on it and was officially authorized as the theological textbook by the Lateran Council ofA.D.1215. It is indeed a well arranged collection of the doctrinal deliverances of the Fathers, in which apparent contradictions are dialectically resolved, with great skill, and wrought up together into an articulate system, but from want of independence and occasional indecision or withholding of any definite opinion, it falls behind Hugo’sSummaand Robert’sSentences. It had this advantage, however, that it gave freer scope to scholars and teachers, and so was more stimulating as a textbook for academic use. The Lombard’s works include a commentary on the Psalms andCatenæon the Pauline Epistles.The FrenchmanPeter of Poitiers(Pictaviensis), one of the ablest followers of the Lombard, was chancellor of the University of Paris toward the end of the century. He wrote 5 bks. of Sentences or Distinctions, which in form and matter are closely modelled on the work of his master.The most gifted of all the Summists of the 12th century was the GermanAlanus ab Insulis, born at Lille or Ryssel, lat.Insulæ. After teaching long at Paris, he entered the Cistercian order, and died at an advanced age at Clairvaux inA.D.1203. A man of extensive erudition and a voluminous writer, he was calledDoctor universalis. He wrote an allegorical poemAnticlaudianus, which describes how reason and faith in union with all the virtues restore human nature to perfection. HisRegulæ de s. theologiagive a short outline of theology and morals in 125 paradoxical sentences which are tersely expounded. A short but able summary of the Christian faith is given in the 5 bks.De arte catholicæ fidei. This work is characterized by the use of a mathematical style of demonstration, like that of the later school of Wolf, and an avoidance of references to patristic authorities, which would have little weight with Mohammedans and heretics. He is thus rather an opponent than a representative of dialectic scholasticism. TheSumma quadripartita c. Hæreticos sui temporisascribed to him was written by another Alanus.§ 102.6.The Controversy on German Soil.—The provostGerhochand his brother, the deanArnoof Reichersberg in Bavaria, were representatives of the school of St. Victor as mediators between dialectics and mysticism. InA.D.1150 Gerhoch addressed a memorial to Eugenius III.,De corrupto ecclesiæ statu, and afterwards he publishedDe investigatione Antichristi. He found the antichrist in the papal schisms of his times, in the ambition and covetousness of popes, in the corruptibility of the curia, in the manifold corruptions of the church, and especially in the spread of a dialectic destructive of all the mysteries of the faith. The controversy in which both of these brothers took most interest was that occasioned by the revival of Adoptionism in consequence of the teaching of French dialecticians, especially Abælard and Gilbert. It led to the formulating of the Christological doctrine in such a form as prepared the way for the later Lutheran theories of theCommunicatio idiomatumand theUbiquitas corporis Christi(§141, 9).—In South Germany, conspicuously in the schools of Bamberg, Freisingen, and Salzburg, the dialectic of Abælard, Gilbert, and the Lombard was predominant. Its chief representatives wereFolmar of Triefensteinin Franconia and BishopEberhard of Bamberg. The controversy arose over the doctrine of the eucharist. Folmar had maintained like Berengar that not the actually glorified body of Christ is present in the sacrament, but only the spiritual substance of His flesh and blood, without muscles, sinews and bones. Against this gross Capernaitic view (John vi. 52, 59) Gerhoch maintained that the eucharistic body is the very resurrection body of Christ, the substance of which is a glorified corporeity without flesh and blood in a carnal sense, without sinews and bones. The bishop of Bamberg took offence at his friend’s bold rejection of the doctrine approved by the church, and so Folmar modified his position to the extent of admitting that there was on the altar not only the true, but also the whole body in the perfection of its human substance, under the form of bread and wine. But nevertheless both he and Abælard adhered to their radical error, a dialectical dismemberment of the two natures of Christ, according to which the divinity and humanity, the Son of God and the Son of man, were two strictly separate existences. Christ, they taught, is according to His humanity Son of God in no other way than a pious man is,i.e.by adoption; but according to His Divine nature He is like the Father omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient. In respect of His human nature it must still be said by Him, “My Father is greater than I.” He dwells, however, bodily in heaven, and is shut in by and confined to it. Only His Divine nature can claimLatriaoradoratio, worship. OnlyDulia, cultus, reverence, such as is due to saints, images, and relics, should be given to His body and blood upon the altar. Gerhoch’s doctrine of the Supper, on the other hand, is summed up in the proposition: He who receives the flesh of the Logos (Caro Verbi) receives also therewith the Logos in His flesh (Verbum carnis). Folmar and Eberhard denounced this as Eutychian heresy. A conference at Bamberg inA.D.1158, where Gerhoch stood alone as representative of his views, ended by his opponents declaring that he had been convicted of heresy. InA.D.1162 a Council at Friesach in Carinthia, under the presidency of Archbishop Eberhard of Salzburg, reached the same conclusion.§ 102.7.Theologians of a Pre-eminently Biblical and Ecclesiastico-Practical Tendency.Alger of Liège, teacher of the cathedral school there, was one of the most important German theologians in the beginning of the 12th century. He resigned his appointment inA.D.1121, to spend his last years in the monastery of Clugny, in order to enjoy the company and friendship of its abbot, Peter the Venerable; and there he died aboutA.D.1130. The school of Liège, in which he had himself been trained up in the high church Cluniac doctrine there prevalent, flourished greatly during his rule of twenty years. His chief works areDe Sacramentis corporis et sanguinis Dominiin 3 bks., distinguished by acuteness and lucidity, and a controversial tract on the lines of Radbert against Berengar’s doctrine condemned by the church. In hisDe misericordia et justitiahe treats of church discipline with circumspection, clearness, and decision.Rupert of Deutz, more than any mediæval scholar before or after, created an enthusiasm for the study of Scripture as the people’s book for all times, the field in which the precious treasure is hid, to be found by any one whose eyes are made sharp by faith. He was a contemporary and fellow countryman of Alger, and died inA.D.1135. Though he refers to the Hebrew and Greek texts, he cares less for the literal than for the speculative-dogmatic and mystical sense discovered by allegorical exegesis. In his principal work,De trinitate et operilus ejus, he sets forth in 3 bks. the creation work of the Father, in 30 bks. the revealing and redeeming work of the Son, from the fall to the death of Christ, and in the remaining 9 books the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, from the resurrection of Christ to the general resurrection. He maintains in opposition to Anselm (who was afterwards followed by Thomas Aquinas) that Christ would have become incarnate even if men had not sinned (a view which appears in Irenæus, and afterwards in Alexander Hales, Duns Scotus, John Wessel, and others).In regard to the Lord’s Supper he maintained the doctrine of consubstantiation, and he taught like pope Gelasius (§ 58, 2) that the relation of the heavenly and earthly in the eucharist is quite analogous to that of the two natures in Christ.302The BenedictineHervæusin the cloister of Bourg-Dieu, who died aboutA.D.1150, was distinguished for deep piety and zealous study of Scripture and the fathers. He wrote commentaries on Isaiah and on the Pauline Epistles, the latter of which was ascribed to Anselm and so published among his works.§ 102.8.John of Salisbury,Johannes Parvus Sarisberiensis, was a theologian of a thoroughly practical tendency, though a diligent student of Abælard and an able classical scholar, specially familiar with the writings of Cicero. As the trusted friend of Hadrian IV. he was often sent from England on embassies to the pope. In Becket’s struggle against the encroachments of the Crown upon the rights of the church (§96, 16) he stood by the primate’s side as his faithful counsellor and fellow soldier, wrote an account of his life and martyrdom, and laboured diligently to secure his canonization. He was made Bishop of Chartres inA.D.1176, and died there inA.D.1180. His works, distinguished by singularly wide reading and a pleasing style, are pre-eminently practical. In hisPolicraticus s. de nugis Curialium et vestigiis Philosophorumhe combats thenugæof the hangers on at court with theological and philosophical weapons in a well balanced system of ecclesiastico-political and philosophico-theological ethics. HisMetalogicusin 4 bks. is a polemic against the prostitution of science by the empty formalism of the schoolmen. His 329 Epistles are of immense importance for the literary and scientific history of his times.Walter of St. Victor, Richard’s successor as prior of that monastery, makes his appearance aboutA.D.1130, as the author of a vigorous polemic against dialectic scholasticism, in which he combats especially Christological heresies and spares the idolized Lombard just as little as the condemned Abælard.303He combats with special eagerness a new heresy springing from Abælard and developed by the Lombard which he styles “Nihilism,” because by denying the independence of the human nature of Christ it teaches that Christ in so far as He is man is not anAliquid,i.e.an individual.Innocent III.is deserving of a place here both on account of his rich theological learning and on account of the earnestness and depth of the moral and religious view of life which he presents in his writings. The most celebrated of these areDe contemtu mundiand 6 bks.Mysteria evang. legis ac sacramenti Eucharistitæ, and during his pontificate, his epistles and sermons.§ 102.9.Humanist Philosophers.—While Abælard was striving to prove Christianity the religion of reason, and for this was condemned by the church, his contemporaryBernard Sylvester, teacher of the school of Chartres, a famous nursery of classical studies, was seeking to shake himself free of any reference to theology and the church. Satisfied with Platonism as a genuinely spiritual religion, and feeling therefore no personal need of the church and its consolations, he carefully avoided any allusion to its dogmas, and so remained in high repute as a teacher and writer. His treatise,De mundi universitates. Megacosmus et Microcosmus, in dialogue form discussing in a dilettante, philosophizing style natural phenomena, half poetry, half prose, was highly popular in its day. It fared very differently with his accomplished and like-minded scholarWilliam of Conches. The vehemence with which he declared himself a Catholic Christian and not a heathen Academic aroused suspicion. Though in hisPhilosophia mundi, sometimes erroneously attributed to Honorius of Autun, he studiously sought to avoid any contradiction of the biblical and ecclesiastical theory of the world, he could not help in his discussion of the origin of man characterizing the literal interpretation of the Scripture history of creation as peasant faith. The book fell into the hands of the abbot William of Thierry, who accused its author to St. Bernard. The opposition soon attained to such dimensions that he was obliged to publish a formal recantation and in a new edition to remove everything objectionable.
§ 102.1.The Contest on French Soil.
§ 102.2.
Abælardmaintained, in opposition to the Augustinian-Anselmian theory, that faith preceded knowledge, that only what we comprehend is to be believed. He did indeed intend that his dialectic should be used not for the overthrow but for the establishment of the church doctrine. He proceeded, however, from doubt as the principle of all knowledge, regarding all church dogmas as problems which must be proved before they can be believed:Dubitando enim ad inquisitionem venimus, inquirendo veritatem percipimus. He thus reduced faith to a mere probability and measured the content of faith by the rule of subjective reason. This was most glaring in the case of the trinitarian doctrine, which with him approached Sabellian modalism. God as omnipotent is to be called Father, as all wise the Son, as loving and gracious the Spirit; and so the incarnation becomes a merely temporal and dynamic immanence of the Logos in the man Jesus. The significance of the ethical element in Christianity quite overshadowed that of the dogmatic. He taught that all fundamental truths of Christianity had been previously proclaimed by philosophers and poets of Greece and Rome, who were scarcely less inspired than the prophets and apostles, the special service of the latter consisting in giving currency to these truths among the uncultured. He turns with satisfaction from the theology of the Fathers to that of the apostles, and from that again to the religion of Jesus, whom he represents rather as a reformer introducing a pure morality than as a founder of a religious system.Setting aside Anselm’s theory of satisfaction, he regards the redemption and reconciliation of man as consisting in the awakening in sinful man, by means of the infinite love displayed by Christ’s teaching and example, by His life, sufferings and death upon the cross, a responding love of such fulness and power, that he is thereby freed from the dominion of sin and brought into the glorious liberty of the children of God.298—Abælard’s fame and following grew in a wonderful manner from day to day; but also powerful opponents dragged his heresies into light and vigorously combated them. The most important of these were the Cistercian monk William of Thierry and St. Bernard, who called attention to the dangerous tendency of his teaching. St. Bernard dealt personally with the heretic, but when he failed in converting him, he appeared inA.D.1141 at the Synod of Sens as his accuser. The synod condemned as heretical a series of statements culled from his writings by Bernard. Abælard appealed to the pope, but even his friends at Rome, among whom was Card. Guido de Castella, afterwards Pope Cœlestine II., could not close their eyes to his manifest heterodoxies. His friendship for Arnold of Brescia also told against him at Rome (§108, 7). Innocent II. therefore excommunicated Abælard and his supporters, condemned his writings to be burnt and himself to be confined in a monastery.Abælard found an asylum with the abbot Peter the Venerable of Clugny, who not only effected his reconciliation with Bernard, but also, on the ground of hisApologia s. Confessio fidei, in which he submitted to the judgment of the church, obtained permission from the pope to pass his last days in peace at Clugny. During this time he composed hisHist. calamitatum Abælardi, an epistolary autobiography, which, though not free from vanity and bitterness, is yet worthy to be ranked with Augustine’s “Confessions” for its unreserved self-accusation and for the depth of self-knowledge which it reveals. He died inA.D.1142, in the monastery of St. Marcellus at Chalons, where he had gone in quest of health. He was buried in the abbey of the Paraclete, where Heloise laid on his coffin the letter of absolution of Peter of Clugny.Twenty-two years later Heloise herself was laid in the same quiet resting place.299
§ 102.3.
§ 102.4.
§ 102.5.
§ 102.6.The Controversy on German Soil.—The provostGerhochand his brother, the deanArnoof Reichersberg in Bavaria, were representatives of the school of St. Victor as mediators between dialectics and mysticism. InA.D.1150 Gerhoch addressed a memorial to Eugenius III.,De corrupto ecclesiæ statu, and afterwards he publishedDe investigatione Antichristi. He found the antichrist in the papal schisms of his times, in the ambition and covetousness of popes, in the corruptibility of the curia, in the manifold corruptions of the church, and especially in the spread of a dialectic destructive of all the mysteries of the faith. The controversy in which both of these brothers took most interest was that occasioned by the revival of Adoptionism in consequence of the teaching of French dialecticians, especially Abælard and Gilbert. It led to the formulating of the Christological doctrine in such a form as prepared the way for the later Lutheran theories of theCommunicatio idiomatumand theUbiquitas corporis Christi(§141, 9).—In South Germany, conspicuously in the schools of Bamberg, Freisingen, and Salzburg, the dialectic of Abælard, Gilbert, and the Lombard was predominant. Its chief representatives wereFolmar of Triefensteinin Franconia and BishopEberhard of Bamberg. The controversy arose over the doctrine of the eucharist. Folmar had maintained like Berengar that not the actually glorified body of Christ is present in the sacrament, but only the spiritual substance of His flesh and blood, without muscles, sinews and bones. Against this gross Capernaitic view (John vi. 52, 59) Gerhoch maintained that the eucharistic body is the very resurrection body of Christ, the substance of which is a glorified corporeity without flesh and blood in a carnal sense, without sinews and bones. The bishop of Bamberg took offence at his friend’s bold rejection of the doctrine approved by the church, and so Folmar modified his position to the extent of admitting that there was on the altar not only the true, but also the whole body in the perfection of its human substance, under the form of bread and wine. But nevertheless both he and Abælard adhered to their radical error, a dialectical dismemberment of the two natures of Christ, according to which the divinity and humanity, the Son of God and the Son of man, were two strictly separate existences. Christ, they taught, is according to His humanity Son of God in no other way than a pious man is,i.e.by adoption; but according to His Divine nature He is like the Father omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient. In respect of His human nature it must still be said by Him, “My Father is greater than I.” He dwells, however, bodily in heaven, and is shut in by and confined to it. Only His Divine nature can claimLatriaoradoratio, worship. OnlyDulia, cultus, reverence, such as is due to saints, images, and relics, should be given to His body and blood upon the altar. Gerhoch’s doctrine of the Supper, on the other hand, is summed up in the proposition: He who receives the flesh of the Logos (Caro Verbi) receives also therewith the Logos in His flesh (Verbum carnis). Folmar and Eberhard denounced this as Eutychian heresy. A conference at Bamberg inA.D.1158, where Gerhoch stood alone as representative of his views, ended by his opponents declaring that he had been convicted of heresy. InA.D.1162 a Council at Friesach in Carinthia, under the presidency of Archbishop Eberhard of Salzburg, reached the same conclusion.
§ 102.7.Theologians of a Pre-eminently Biblical and Ecclesiastico-Practical Tendency.
§ 102.8.
§ 102.9.Humanist Philosophers.—While Abælard was striving to prove Christianity the religion of reason, and for this was condemned by the church, his contemporaryBernard Sylvester, teacher of the school of Chartres, a famous nursery of classical studies, was seeking to shake himself free of any reference to theology and the church. Satisfied with Platonism as a genuinely spiritual religion, and feeling therefore no personal need of the church and its consolations, he carefully avoided any allusion to its dogmas, and so remained in high repute as a teacher and writer. His treatise,De mundi universitates. Megacosmus et Microcosmus, in dialogue form discussing in a dilettante, philosophizing style natural phenomena, half poetry, half prose, was highly popular in its day. It fared very differently with his accomplished and like-minded scholarWilliam of Conches. The vehemence with which he declared himself a Catholic Christian and not a heathen Academic aroused suspicion. Though in hisPhilosophia mundi, sometimes erroneously attributed to Honorius of Autun, he studiously sought to avoid any contradiction of the biblical and ecclesiastical theory of the world, he could not help in his discussion of the origin of man characterizing the literal interpretation of the Scripture history of creation as peasant faith. The book fell into the hands of the abbot William of Thierry, who accused its author to St. Bernard. The opposition soon attained to such dimensions that he was obliged to publish a formal recantation and in a new edition to remove everything objectionable.