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059 - 28 Abelard and his Fortunes · Short History of the Christian Church

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  Speaker 1: Part two, Chapter twenty eight of Short History of the
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  Speaker 1: Christian Church by John Fletcher Hurst. This LibriVox recording is
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  Speaker 1: in the public domain, Chapter twenty eight Abillard and his Fortunes.
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  Speaker 1: Of all the leaders in the great Scholastic movement, there
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  Speaker 1: is no one to whom so great a personal interest
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  Speaker 1: attaches as to Abilard ten seventy nine to eleven forty two.
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  Speaker 1: He gave promise at an early age of the remarkable
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  Speaker 1: abilities which distinguished his entire career and attracted the profound
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  Speaker 1: attention of all Europe. His first plan for life seems
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  Speaker 1: to have been the career of a soldier, but he
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  Speaker 1: soon devoted himself to theological studies, and here achieved such
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  Speaker 1: success as to astound, alike his preceptors and companions. He
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  Speaker 1: left his home, where he had enjoyed the teaching of
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  Speaker 1: the famous Roscolyn of Campeigne, and repaired to Paris. William
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  Speaker 1: of Champeau was at this time at the head of
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  Speaker 1: an abbey of Saint Victor, which he himself had founded,
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  Speaker 1: and stood in the front of the theological and philosophical
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  Speaker 1: movement which had concentrated in that city. He was the
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  Speaker 1: first to give to the schools of Paris a university character,
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  Speaker 1: and to admit the laity as well as the clergy
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  Speaker 1: and foreigners as well as natives, to the privileges of
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  Speaker 1: the highest education within the walls of a school of
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  Speaker 1: the church. His liberal movement in this direction was the
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  Speaker 1: death knell of exclusionism in education, and the real preparation
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  Speaker 1: for the recognition in all later time of the rights
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  Speaker 1: of the poorest and humblest to all the wealth of science.
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  Speaker 1: Abilard placed himself under the charge of William and developed
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  Speaker 1: with amazing rapidity. But in two years time the young
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  Speaker 1: student differed so essentially from his master that he broke
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  Speaker 1: off his connection and established the abbey of Saint Genevieve
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  Speaker 1: close beside his master's renowned abbey of Saint Victor. Abilard
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  Speaker 1: emptied the walls of Saint Victor. The multitudes gathered about him.
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  Speaker 1: The eloquence with which he taught, the mastery of language,
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  Speaker 1: the skill in logic, and the magnetism of his personality
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  Speaker 1: attracted a constantly increasing audience to the multitudes who came
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  Speaker 1: from various countries. All Paris was as nothing. He was
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  Speaker 1: the one man for whose wisdom and example students from
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  Speaker 1: all parts of France, England, Spain, and even Rome itself
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  Speaker 1: had come with eager search the success of his teaching
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  Speaker 1: and the decline of William's school. Through that success awakened
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  Speaker 1: the opposition not only of William but of his friends
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  Speaker 1: and sympathizers. To get away from the persecution, Abilard left Paris,
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  Speaker 1: went to Mouloon and began to teach with the same
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  Speaker 1: success which he had enjoyed in Paris. He went thence
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  Speaker 1: to Courbet and taught as before. Here his health failed
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  Speaker 1: and he retired for several years to his native place Palais,
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  Speaker 1: near Nante. He then returned to Paris. From this time
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  Speaker 1: he devoted himself entirely to the study of theology. He
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  Speaker 1: left Paris and went to Laon, where he had as
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  Speaker 1: his preceptor Anselm of Laon, the pupil of the celebrated Anselm.
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  Speaker 1: This man soon became unable to withstand the boldness of
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  Speaker 1: Abilard's ideas and the power of his eloquence, and secured
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  Speaker 1: his expulsion from Laon. Then Abilard returned to Paris and
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  Speaker 1: established a new school, which was overwhelmed in a short
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  Speaker 1: time by throngs of students. He was now at the
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  Speaker 1: head of the theological world of Europe. His students were
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  Speaker 1: devoted to him, and his opinions were accepted by his
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  Speaker 1: admirer errors as final this school became the very center
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  Speaker 1: of education for such of the clergy of Europe as
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  Speaker 1: desired a thorough scientific training. Guizeau says of its success.
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  Speaker 1: In this celebrated school were trained one Pope Celesting the second,
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  Speaker 1: nineteen cardinals, more than fifty bishops and archbishops French, English
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  Speaker 1: and German, and a much larger number of those men
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  Speaker 1: with whom popes, bishops and cardinals had often to contend,
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  Speaker 1: such men as Arnold of Brescia and others. The number
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  Speaker 1: of pupils which used at that time to assemble around
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  Speaker 1: Abelard had been estimated at upwards of five thousand end.
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  Speaker 1: This man was now at the zenith of his power.
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  Speaker 1: He was employed by Flubear, a canon of the Cathedral
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  Speaker 1: of Paris, to be the private teacher of his niece,
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  Speaker 1: the rarely gifted Eloise. He had an improper relation with her,
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  Speaker 1: and his name was stained by the crime of which
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  Speaker 1: not even his bitterest foe could have had a suspicion.
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  Speaker 1: Desire of wine and all delicious drinks which many a
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  Speaker 1: famous warrior overturns. Thou couldst repress. Nor did the dancing ruby,
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  Speaker 1: sparkling outpoured the flavor or the smell or taste that
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  Speaker 1: cheers the hearts of gods or men, allure thee from
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  Speaker 1: the cool crystalline stream. But what availed this temperance not
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  Speaker 1: complete against another object? More enticing? What boots it at
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  Speaker 1: one gait to make defense and at another to let
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  Speaker 1: in the foe effeminately vanquished? Abelard married Eloise, but the
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  Speaker 1: affair was kept a secret. At her request, she was
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  Speaker 1: willing to suffer disgrace that his preferment might not suffer.
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  Speaker 1: He now took the vows of a monk and entered
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  Speaker 1: the convent of Saint Denis, while Eloise took the veil
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  Speaker 1: as a nun in the convent of Argenteel. He continued
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  Speaker 1: to teach and to write with broken spirit, but with
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  Speaker 1: a multitude of admirers. He was charged with heresy for
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  Speaker 1: certain remarks in his Introduction to Theology, and at the
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  Speaker 1: Council of Soisson in eleven twenty one he was compelled
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  Speaker 1: to burn his book with his own hands. He afterwards
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  Speaker 1: returned to his monastery of Saint Denis, but left it
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  Speaker 1: and built an oratory in the name of the Holy Trinity,
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  Speaker 1: which he called the Paraclete. At his death in the
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  Speaker 1: year eleven forty two, he left his oratory to be
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  Speaker 1: conducted by Aloise. He gave a strong blow to the
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  Speaker 1: supremacy of the church fathers by his book ci a
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  Speaker 1: et non Yea and Nay, in which by paralleled quotations
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  Speaker 1: he shows their irreconcilable contradictions, but he gave no concessions
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  Speaker 1: to skeptical writers. Here lay the most difficult point in
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  Speaker 1: the opposition by the ecclesiastical authorities to the direct teaching
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  Speaker 1: of Abelard. Nothing could be proved save by inference against
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  Speaker 1: his orthodoxy. While he assumed the unity of the divine being,
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  Speaker 1: he held that there were diversities of his relations in
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  Speaker 1: which the divine persons consist. He also affirmed a knowledge
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  Speaker 1: of God to be arrived at by the reason, but
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  Speaker 1: he never claimed that this was either complete or accurate,
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  Speaker 1: or independent of the full scriptural revelation. His works consist
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  Speaker 1: of letters to Eloise, exposition of the Lord's Prayer, exposition
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  Speaker 1: of the Apostolic Creed, exposition of the Athenasian Creed, Book
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  Speaker 1: against heresies, commentary on Romans, sermons, Introduction to theology, Epitome
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  Speaker 1: of Christian Doctrine, and various works of correspondence. The general
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  Speaker 1: effect of his teaching was to promote a critical and
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  Speaker 1: thorough method in the investigation of truth. End of Chapter
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  Speaker 1: twenty eight.