Joseph McCabe

THE TRIAL OF A HERETIC

The swiftly multiplying charges seem to have impaired AbÉlard’s health. He became much more sensitive to the accusation of heresy than the mere injustice of it can explain. We have an evidence of his morbid state at this period in a letter he wrote to the Bishop of Paris. The letter must not be regarded as a normal indication of the writer’s character, but, like the letter of Canon Roscelin which it elicited, it is not a little instructive about the age in which the writers lived. There are hypercritical writers who question the correctness of attributing these letters to AbÉlard and Roscelin, but the details they contain refer so clearly to the two masters that any doubt about their origin is, as Deutsch says, ‘frivolous and of no account’; he adds that we should be only too glad, for the sake of the writers, if there were some firm ground for contesting their genuineness.

A pupil of AbÉlard’s, coming down from Paris, brought him word that Roscelin had lodged an accusation of heresy against him with the bishop. As a monk of St. Denis, AbÉlard still belonged to Bishop Girbert’s jurisdiction. Roscelin had himself been condemned for heresy on the Trinity at Soissons in 1092, but his was an accommodating rationalism; he was now an important member of the chapter of St. Martin at Tours. Report stated that he had discovered heresy in AbÉlard’s new work, and was awaiting the return of Girbert to Paris in order to submit it to him. AbÉlard immediately grasped the pen, and forwarded to Girbert a letter which is a sad exhibition of ‘nerves.’ ‘I have heard,’ he says, after an ornate salutation of the bishop and his clergy, ‘that that ever inflated and long-standing enemy of the Catholic faith, whose manner of life and teaching are notorious, and whose detestable heresy was proved by the fathers of the Council of Soissons, and punished with exile, has vomited forth many calumnies and threats against me, on account of the work I have written, which was chiefly directed against his heresy.’ And so the violent and exaggerated account of Roscelin’s misdeeds continues. The practical point of the epistle is that AbÉlard requests the bishop to appoint a place and time for him to meet Roscelin face to face and defend his work. The whole letter is marred by nervous passion of the most pitiful kind. It terminates with a ridiculous, but characteristic, dialectical thrust at the nominalist: ‘in that passage of Scripture where the Lord is said to have eaten a bit of broiled fish, he [Roscelin] is compelled to say that Christ ate, not a part of the reality, but a part of the term “broiled fish.”’

Roscelin replied directly to AbÉlard, besides writing to Girbert. The letter is no less characteristic of the time, though probably an equally unsafe indication of the character of the writer. ‘If,’ it begins, in the gentle manner of the time, ‘you had tasted a little of that sweetness of the Christian religion which you profess by your habit, you would not, unmindful of your order and your profession, and forgetful of the countless benefits you received from my teaching from your childhood to youth, have so far indulged in words of malice against me as to disturb the brethren’s peace with the sword of the tongue, and to contemn our Saviour’s most salutary and easy commands.’ He accepts, with an equally edifying humility, AbÉlard’s fierce denunciation: ‘I see myself in your words as in a mirror. Yet God is powerful to raise up out of the very stones,’ etc. But he cannot long sustain the unnatural tone, and he suddenly collapses into depths of mediÆval Latin, which for filth and indecency rival the lowest productions of Billingsgate. The venerable canon returns again and again, in the course of his long letter, to AbÉlard’s mutilation, and with the art of a Terence or a Plautus. As to the proposed debate, he is only too eager for it. If AbÉlard attempts to shirk it at the last moment, he ‘will follow him all over the world.’ He finally dies away in an outburst of childish rage which beats AbÉlard’s peroration. He will not continue any longer because it occurs to him that AbÉlard is, by the strictest force of logic, a nonentity. He is not a monk, for he is giving lessons; he is not a cleric, for he has parted with the soutane; he is not a layman, for he has the tonsure; he is not even the Peter he signs himself, for Peter is a masculine name.

These were the two ablest thinkers of Christendom at the time. Fortunately for both, the battle royal of the dialecticians did not take place. Possibly Roscelin had not lodged the rumoured complaint at all. In any case Girbert was spared a painful and pitiful scene.

A short time afterwards, however, Alberic and Lotulphe found an excellent opportunity to take action. Some time in the year 1121 a papal legate, Conon, Bishop of Praeneste, came to Rheims. Conon had been travelling in France for some years as papal legate, and since it was the policy of Rome to conciliate France, in view of the hostility of Germany, the legate had a general mission to make himself as useful and obliging as possible. Archbishop Ralph, for his part, would find it a convenient means of gratifying his teachers, without incurring much personal responsibility. The outcome of their conferences was, therefore, that AbÉlard received from the legate a polite invitation to appear at a provincial synod, or council, which was to be held at Soissons, and to bring with him his ‘celebrated work on the Trinity.’ The simple monk was delighted at the apparent opportunity of vindicating his orthodoxy. It was his first trial for heresy.

When the time drew near for what AbÉlard afterwards called ‘their conventicle,’ he set out for Soissons with a small band of friends, who were to witness the chastisement of Alberic and Lotulphe. But those astute masters had not so naÏve a view of the function of a council. Like St. Bernard, with whom, indeed, they were already in correspondence, they relied largely on that art of ecclesiastical diplomacy which is the only visible embodiment of the Church’s supernatural power. Moreover, they had the curious ecclesiastical habit of deciding that an end—in this case, the condemnation of AbÉlard—was desirable, and then piously disregarding the moral quality of the means necessary to attain it. How far the two masters had arranged all the conditions of the council we cannot say, but these certainly favoured their plans.

Soissons, to begin with, was excellently suited for the holding of a council which was to condemn, rather than investigate. Its inhabitants would remember the sentence passed on Roscelin for a like offence. In fact Longueval says, in his Histoire de l’Église Gallicane, that the people of Soissons were religious fanatics as a body, and had of their own impulse burned, or ‘lynched,’ a man who was suspected of ManichÆism, only a few years previously. Alberic and Lotulphe had taken care to revive this pious instinct, by spreading amongst the people the information that ‘the foreign monk,’ ‘the eunuch of St. Denis,’ who was coming to the town to be tried, had openly taught the error of tri-theism. The consequence was that when the Benedictine monk appeared in the streets with his few admirers, he had a narrow escape of being stoned to death by the excited citizens. It was a rude shock to his dream of a great dialectical triumph.

On one point, however, AbÉlard’s simple honesty hit upon a correct measure. He went straight to Bishop Conon with his work, and submitted it for the legate’s perusal and personal judgment. The politician was embarrassed. He knew nothing whatever about theology, and would lose his way immediately in AbÉlard’s subtle analogies. However, he bade AbÉlard take the book to the archbishop and the two masters. They in turn fumbled it in silence, AbÉlard says, and at length told him that judgment would be passed on it at the end of the council.

Meantime AbÉlard had succeeded in correcting, to some extent, the inspired prejudice of the townsfolk. Every day he spoke and disputed in the streets and churches, before the council sat, and he tells us that he seemed to make an impression on his hearers. Alberic, in fact, came one day with a number of his pupils for the purpose of modifying his rival’s success; though he hurriedly retreated when it was shown that his specially prepared difficulty had no force. Premising ‘a few polite phrases,’ he pointed out that AbÉlard had denied that God generated himself in the Trinity; for this statement, he carefully explained, he did not ask reasons, but an authority. AbÉlard promptly turned over the page, and pointed to a quotation from St. Augustine. It was a swift and complete victory. But AbÉlard must needs improve on it by accusing his accuser of heresy, and Alberic departed ‘like one demented with rage.’ Priests and people were now openly asking whether the council had discovered the error to lie with itself rather than with AbÉlard. They came to the last day of the council.

Before the formal opening of the last session, the legate invited the chief actors in the comedy (except AbÉlard) to a private discussion of the situation. Conon’s position and attitude were purely political. He cared little about their dialectical subtleties; was, in fact, quite incompetent to decide questions of personality, modality, and all the rest. Still it was mainly a minor political situation he had to deal with, and he shows an eagerness to get through it with as little moral damage as possible. Ralph the Green, president of the council, knew no more than Conon about theology; he also regarded it as a political dilemma, and the prestige of his school would gain by the extinction of AbÉlard. Ralph had nine suffragan bishops, but only one of these is proved to have taken part in the ‘conventicle.’ It was Lisiard de Crespy, Bishop of Soissons, who would support his metropolitan. Joscelin, an earlier rival of AbÉlard, was teaching in Soissons at that time, and would most probably accompany his bishop. Abbot Adam of St. Denis was present; so were Alberic and Lotulphe. One man of a more worthy type sat with them, an awkward and embarrassing spokesman of truth and justice, Geoffroi, Bishop of Chartres, one of the most influential and most honourable members of the French episcopacy.

Conon at once shrewdly introduced the formal question, what heresy had been discovered in AbÉlard’s book? After his ill-success in the street-discussion, Alberic seems to have hesitated to quote any definite passage in the work. Indeed, we not only have two contradictory charges given, but the texts which seem to have been used in this council to prove the charge of tri-theism were quoted by the Council of Sens in 1141 in proof of an accusation of Sabellianism. Otto von Freising says that AbÉlard held the three divine persons to be modifications of one essence (the Anselmists claiming that the three were realities); AbÉlard himself says he was accused of tri-theism. Every ‘analogy’ that has been found in the natural world for the dogma of the Trinity, from the shamrock of St. Patrick to the triangle of PÈre Lacordaire, exposes its discoverer to one or other of those charges—for an obvious reason. After the death of Dr. Dale I remember seeing a passage quoted by one of his panegyrists in illustration of his singularly sound and clear presentation of dogma: it was much more Sabellian than anything AbÉlard ever wrote.

However, the explicit demand of the legate for a specimen of AbÉlard’s heresy was embarrassing. Nothing could be discovered in the book to which AbÉlard could not have assigned a parallel in the fathers. And when Alberic began to extort heresy by ingenious interpretation Geoffroi de LÈves reminded them of the elementary rules of justice. In the formal proceedings of a trial for heresy no one was condemned unheard. If they were to anticipate the trial by an informal decision, the requirement of justice was equally urgent. They must give the accused an opportunity of defending himself. That was the one course which Alberic dreaded most of all, and he so well urged the magical power of AbÉlard’s tongue that the bishop’s proposal was rejected. Geoffroi then complained of the smallness of the council, and the injustice of leaving so grave and delicate a decision to a few prelates. Let AbÉlard be given into the care of his abbot, who should take him back to St. Denis and have him judged by an assembly of expert theologians. The legate liked the idea. The Rheims people regarded it, for the moment, as an effective removal of AbÉlard from their neighbourhood. The proposal was agreed to, and the legate then proceeded to say the Mass of the Holy Ghost.

Meantime Archbishop Ralph informed AbÉlard of the decision. Unsatisfactory as the delay was, he must have been grateful for an escape from the power of Rheims. He turned indifferently from the further session of the council. Unfortunately another conference was even then taking place between Alberic, Ralph, and Conon; and AbÉlard was presently summoned to bring his book before the council.

Alberic and Lotulphe were, on reflection, dissatisfied with the result. Their influence would have no weight in a trial at Paris, and their ambition required the sacrifice of the famous master. They therefore went to the archbishop with a complaint that people would take it to be a confession of incompetency if he allowed the case to go before another court. The three approached the legate again, and now reminded him that AbÉlard’s work was published without episcopal permission, and could justly be condemned on that ground. As ignorant of canon law as he was of theology, and seeing the apparent friendlessness of AbÉlard, and therefore the security of a condemnation, Conon agreed to their proposal.

AbÉlard had long looked forward to the hour of his appearance before the Council. It was to be an hour of supreme triumph. The papal legate and the archbishop in their resplendent robes in the sanctuary; the circle of bishops and abbots and canons; the crowd of priests, theologians, masters, and clerics; the solemn pulpit of the cathedral church, from which he should make his highest effort of dialectics and oratory; the scattered rivals, and the triumphant return to his pupils. He had rehearsed it daily for a month or more. But the sad, heart-rending reality of his appearance! He was brought in, condemned. He stood in the midst of the thronged cathedral, with the brand of heresy on his brow, he, the intellectual and moral master of them all. A fire was kindled there before the Council. There was no need for Geoffrey of Chartres to come, the tears coursing down his cheeks, to tell him his book was judged and condemned. Quietly, but with a fierce accusation of God Himself in his broken heart, as he afterwards said, he cast his treasured work in the flames.

Even in that awful moment the spirit of comedy must needs assert its mocking presence; or is it only part of the tragedy? Whilst the yellow parchment crackled in the flames, some one who stood by the legate muttered that one passage in it said that God the Father alone was omnipotent. Soulless politician as he was, the ignorant legate fastened on the charge as a confirmation of the justice of his sentence. ‘I could scarcely believe that even a child would fall into such an error,’ said the brute, with an affectation of academic dignity. ‘And yet,’ a sarcastic voice fell on his ear, quoting the Athanasian Creed, ‘and yet there are not Three omnipotent, but One.’ The bold speaker was Tirric, the Breton scholastic, who, as we have seen, probably instructed AbÉlard in mathematics. His bishop immediately began to censure him for his neat exhibition of the legate’s ignorance, but the teacher was determined to express his disgust at the proceedings. ‘You have condemned a child of Israel,’ he cried, lashing the ‘conventicle’ with the scornful words of Daniel, ‘without inquiry or certainty. Return ye to the judgment seat, and judge the judges.’

The archbishop then stepped forward to put an end to the confusion. ‘It is well,’ he said, making a tardy concession to conscience, ‘that the brother have an opportunity of defending his faith before us all.’ AbÉlard gladly prepared to do so, but Alberic and Lotulphe once more opposed the idea. No further discussion was needed, they urged. The council had finished its work; AbÉlard’s errors had been detected and corrected. If it were advisable to have a profession of faith from Brother Peter, let him recite the Athanasian Creed. And lest AbÉlard should object that he did not know the Creed by heart, they produced a copy of it. The politic prelates were easily induced to take their view. In point of fact the archbishop’s proposal was a bare compliance with the canons. AbÉlard’s book had been condemned on the ground that it had been issued without authorisation; nothing had been determined as to the legitimacy of its contents. The canons still demanded that he should be heard before he was sent out into the world with an insidious stigma of heresy.

But charity and justice had no part in that pitiful conventicle. Archbishop and legate thought it politic to follow the ruling of Alberic to the end, and the parchment was handed to AbÉlard. And priest and prelate, monk and abbot, shamelessly stood around, whilst the greatest genius of the age, devoted to religion in every gift of his soul, as each one knew, faltered out the familiar symbol. ‘Good Jesus, where wert thou?’ AbÉlard asks, long years afterwards. There are many who ask it to-day.

So ended the holy Council of Soissons, Provincial Synod of the arch-diocese of Rheims, held under the Ægis of a papal legate, in the year of grace 1121. Its acta are not found in Richard, or LabbÉ, or Hefele: they ‘have not been preserved.’ There is an earlier ecclesiastical council that earned the title of the latrocinium (‘rogues’ council’), and we must not plagiarise. Ingenious and audacious as the apologetic historian is, he has not attempted to defend the Council of Soissons. But his condemnation of it is mildness itself compared with his condemnation of AbÉlard.

For a crowning humiliation AbÉlard was consigned by the council to a large monastery near Soissons, which served as jail or penitentiary for that ecclesiastical province. The abbot of this monastery, Geoffrey of the Stag’s-neck, had assisted at the council, and Dom Gervaise would have it that he had secured AbÉlard for his own purposes. He thinks the abbot was looking to the great legal advantage, in the frequent event of a lawsuit, of having such an orator as AbÉlard in his monastery. It is a possibility, like many other details in Gervaise’s Life of AbÉlard. In forbidding his return either to Maisoncelle or to St. Denis, and definitely consigning him to the abbey of St. MÉdard, the council was once more treating him as a legally convicted heretic. As far as it was concerned, it was filling the chalice of the poor monk’s bitterness. It is a mere accident that Geoffrey was a man of some culture, and was so far influenced by the hideous spectacle he had witnessed as to receive Brother Peter with sympathy and some honour.