It was well for Bernard’s cause that he succeeded in obtaining the decree without delay. He had carefully represented that the whole of France supported him in his demand. It does seem as if some of AbÉlard’s friends were puzzled for a time by his appeal, but before long there came a reaction in his favour, just as had happened after his condemnation at Soissons. Bernard himself may have been perfectly self-justified in his determined effort to prevent AbÉlard from having a fair chance of defending himself, but there are two ways of regarding his conduct.[35] AbÉlard’s followers naturally adopted the view which was less flattering to Bernard’s reputation, and they seem to have had some success in enforcing it. In a letter of Bernard’s to a certain cardinal we find him defending himself against the charge of ‘having obtained the decree by improper means [subripere] from the pope.’
One of the chief instruments in the agitation on the AbÉlardist side was the apology of BÉrenger of Poitiers, which we have quoted previously. Violent and coarse as it was, it was known to have a foundation of fact; and, in the growing unpopularity of Bernard, it had a wide circulation. It was not answered, as the Benedictines say; yet we may gather from BÉrenger’s qualified withdrawal of it, when he is hard pressed, that it gave Bernard and the Cistercians a good deal of annoyance. Arnold of Brescia was, meanwhile, repeating his fulminations at Paris against the whole hierarchical system. He had taken AbÉlard’s late chair in the chapel of St. Hilary on the slope of St. Genevieve, and was sustaining the school until the master should return from Rome in triumph. But Arnold had no hope of any good being done at Rome, and rather preached rebellion against the whole of the bejewelled prelates. Sternly ascetic in his life and ideals—St. Bernard scoffingly applies to him the evangelical description of the Baptist: ‘He ate not, neither did he drink’—he was ever contrasting the luxurious life of the pastors of the Church with the simple ideal of early Christianity. He had not such success in France as elsewhere, and Bernard secured his expulsion a few years later. But the same stern denunciation was on his noble lips when the savage flames sealed them for ever, under the shadow of St. Peter’s, in 1155.
AbÉlard himself seems to have taken matters with a fatal coolness, whilst his adversary was moving heaven and earth to destroy him. He allowed a month or two to elapse before he turned in the direction of Rome.[36] Secure in the consciousness of the integrity of his cause and his own power of pleading, and presuming too much of Rome’s proud boast that it ‘condemned no man unheard,’ he saw no occasion for hurry. Late in the summer he set out upon his long journey. It was his purpose to travel through Burgundy and Lyons, and to cross the Alps by the pass which was soon to bear the name of his energetic enemy. After the fashion of all travellers of the time he rested at night in the monastery nearest to the spot where he was overtaken. Thus it came to pass that, when he arrived in the neighbourhood of MÂcon, he sought hospitality of the great and venerable Benedictine abbey at Cluny.
Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, was the second monk in France at that time. A few degrees lower in the scale of neural intensity than his canonised rival, he far surpassed him in the less exalted virtues of kindliness, humanity, and moderation. ‘The rule of St. Benedict,’ he once wrote to Bernard, ‘is dependent on the sublime general law of charity’; that was not the route to the honour of canonisation. He belonged by birth to the illustrious family of the Montboissiers of Auvergne, and was a man of culture, fine and equable temper, high principle, gentle and humane feeling, and much practical wisdom. He had had more than one controversy with the abbot of Clairvaux, and his influence was understood to counterbalance that of Bernard at times in the affairs of the Church and the kingdom.
It was, therefore, one of the few fortunate accidents of his career that brought AbÉlard to Cluny at that time. Abbot Peter knew that Bernard had actually in his possession the papal decree which ordered the imprisonment of AbÉlard and the burning of his books. He had a deep sympathy for the ageing master who was seeking a new triumph in Rome under such peculiarly sad circumstances. Peter knew well how little the question of heresy really counted for in the matter. It was a question of Church politics; and he decided to use his influence for the purpose of securing a tranquil close for the embittered and calumniated life. AbÉlard was beginning to feel the exactions of his journey, and remained some days at the abbey. The abbot, as he afterwards informs the pope, spoke with him about his purpose, and at length informed him that the blow had already fallen. It was the last and decisive blow. The proud head never again raised itself in defiance of the potent ignorance, the crafty passion, and the hypocrisy that made up the world about him. He was too much enfeebled, too much dispirited, even to repeat the blasphemy of his earlier experience: ‘Good Jesus, where art thou?’ For the first and last time he bowed to the mystery of the triumph of evil.
Abbot Peter then undertook the task of averting the consequence of Bernard’s triumph, and found little difficulty in directing the fallen man. It was imperative, in the first place, to effect some form of reconciliation between the great antagonists, so as to disarm the hostility of Bernard. We shortly find Raynard, the abbot of CÎteaux, at Cluny, and AbÉlard accompanies him back to his abbey. Peter has obtained from him a formal promise to correct anything in his works that may be ‘offensive to pious ears,’ and on this basis Bernard is invited to a reconciliation at CÎteaux. A few days afterwards AbÉlard returns to Cluny with the laconic reply that they ‘had had a peaceful encounter,’ as the abbot informs the pope, to whom he immediately writes for permission to receive AbÉlard into their community at Cluny, adding, with a calm contempt of the accusation of heresy, that ‘Brother Peter’s knowledge’ will be useful to the brethren. The abbot of Cluny had claims upon the pope’s consideration. Although the anti-pope, Anacletus, had been a monk of Cluny, Peter had been the first to meet Innocent when he came to France for support. In pointed terms he begged that AbÉlard ‘might not be driven away or troubled by the importunity of any persons.’ His request was granted; and thus the broken spirit was spared that ‘public humiliation’ in France that Bernard had demanded.
The basis of reconciliation with Bernard was probably a second and shorter apology which AbÉlard wrote at Cluny. It was convenient to regard this at the time as a retractation. In reality it is for the most part a sharp rejection of Bernard’s formulation of his theses and a new enunciation of them in more orthodox phraseology. His frame of mind appears in the introductory note.
‘There is a familiar proverb that “Nothing is said so well that it cannot be perverted,” and, as St. Jerome says, “He who writes many books invites many judges.” I also have written a few things—though little in comparison with others—and have not succeeded in escaping censure; albeit in those things for which I am so gravely charged I am conscious of no fault, nor should I obstinately defend it, if I were. It may be that I have erred in my writings, but I call God to witness and to judge in my soul that I have written nothing through wickedness or pride of those things for which I am chiefly blamed.’
Then, warmly denying Bernard’s charge that he has ever taught a secret doctrine, he passes to a detailed profession of faith on the lines of Bernard’s list of errors. With regard to the Trinity he denies all the heresies ascribed to him; this he could do with perfect justice. On the other points he makes distinctions, adds explanations and qualifications, and even sometimes accepts Bernard’s thesis without remark, though one can generally see a reserve in the background. Thus, on the question of sin committed in ignorance, he makes the familiar modern distinction between culpable and inculpable ignorance: he admits that we have inherited Adam’s sin, but adds ‘because his sin is the source and cause of all our sins.’ On the question of the prevention of evil by God, he merely says, ‘Yes, He often does’; and so forth. The only sentence which looks like a real retractation is that in which he grants ‘the power of the keys’ to all the clergy. In this he clearly dissociates himself from Arnold of Brescia, and perplexes his friends. But his earlier teaching on the point is by no means so clear and categorical as that of Arnold. There is nothing either very commendable or very condemnable about the document. It probably represents a grudging concession to the abbot of Cluny’s friendly pressure and counsel to withdraw from what was really only a heated quarrel with as little friction as possible. That AbÉlard was not in the penitent mood some writers discover in the letter is clear from the peroration. ‘My friend [!] has concluded his list of errors with the remark: “They are found partly in Master Peter’s book of theology, partly in his Sentences, and partly in his Scito te Ipsum.” But I have never written a book of Sentences, and therefore the remark is due to the same malice or ignorance as the errors themselves.’
However, the document had a sufficient air of retractation about it to allow Bernard to withdraw. In substance and spirit it was, as its name indicated, an apology, not a retractation. In fact Bernard’s zealous secretary and an unknown abbot attacked the apology, but AbÉlard made no reply, and the discussion slowly died away. Bernard had won a political triumph, and he showed a becoming willingness to rest content with empty assurances. AbÉlard’s personal force was dead; little eagerness was shown to pursue the seminal truths he had left behind, and which were once thought so abhorrent and pernicious. Later Benedictines virtually admit the justice of this. Mabillon says: ‘We do not regard AbÉlard as a heretic; it is sufficient for the defence of Bernard to admit that he erred in certain things.’ And the historian NoËl Alexandre also says, ‘He must not be regarded as a heretic.’ Indeed, Bernard was strongly condemned at the time by English and German writers. Otto of Freising reproves his action in the cases of both AbÉlard and Gilbert, and attributes it to defects of character. John of Salisbury severely criticises him in the Historia Pontificalis; and Walter Map, another English writer, voices the same widespread feeling.
Another document that AbÉlard sent out from Cluny forms the last page of his intercourse with Heloise. If he had wearily turned away from the strange drama of life, his affection for her survives the disillusion in all its force. There is a welcome tenderness in his thought of her amidst the crushing desolation that has fallen upon him. She shall not be hurt by any unwilling impression of persistent calumny. He writes to her a most affectionate letter, and in the sanctuary of their love makes a solemn profession of the purity of his faith.
‘My sister Heloise, once dear to me in the world, and now most dear in Christ, logic has brought the enmity of men upon me. For there are certain perverse calumniators, whose wisdom leads to perdition, that say I take pre-eminence in logic but fail egregiously in the interpretation of Paul; commending my ability, they would deny me the purity of Christian faith.... I would not rank as a philosopher if it implied any error in faith; I would not be an Aristotle if it kept me away from Christ. For no other name is given to me under heaven in which I may find salvation. I adore Christ, sitting at the right hand of the Father.’ Then follows a brief confession of faith on the chief points of Christian belief—the Trinity, the Incarnation, baptism, penance, and the resurrection. ‘And that all anxiety and doubt may be excluded from thy heart,’ he concludes, ‘do thou hold this concerning me, I have grounded my conscience on that rock on which Christ has built His Church.’
It was AbÉlard’s farewell to her who had shared so much of the joy and the bitterness of his life. But what a different man it recalls through the mists of time from the ‘dragon’ of Bernard’s letters! One contrast at least we cannot fail to note between the saint and the sinner. We have seen Bernard’s treatment of AbÉlard; in this private letter, evidently intended for no eye but that of his wife, we have the sole recorded utterance of AbÉlard on the man who, for so little reason, shattered the triumph and the peace of his closing years.
For if there is a seeming peace about the few months of life that still remained to the great teacher, it is the peace of the grave—the heavy peace that shrouds a dead ambition and a broken spirit, not the glad peace that adorns requited labour and successful love. AbÉlard enters upon a third stage of his existence, and the shadow of the tomb is on it. He becomes a monk; he centres all his thought on the religious exercises that, like the turns of the prayer wheel, write the long catalogue of merit in heaven.
In the abbey of Cluny, under the administration of Peter the Venerable, he found all that his soul desired in its final stage. The vast monastery had a community of four hundred and sixty monks. Older than its rival, CÎteaux, possessed of great wealth and one of the finest churches in France, it was eagerly sought by monastic aspirants. When Innocent II. came to France for support, Cluny sent sixty horses and mules to meet him, and entertained him and all his followers for eleven days. At an earlier date it had lodged pope, king, and emperor, with all their followers, without displacing a single monk. Yet with all its wealth and magnitude the abbey maintained a strict observance of the rule of St. Benedict. Peter was too cultured and humanistic[37] for the Cistercians, who often criticised the half-heartedness of his community. In point of fact a strict order and discipline were maintained in the abbey, and AbÉlard entered fervently into its life. From their beds of straw the monks would rise at midnight and proceed to the church, where they would chant their long, dirge-like matins, and remain in meditation until dawn. Work, study, and prayer filled up the long hours; and at night they would cast themselves down, just as they were, on the bags of straw, to rise again on the morrow for the same task. Such monks—they are rare now, though far from extinct—must be men of one idea—heaven. To that stage had AbÉlard sunk.
Years afterwards the brothers used to point out to visitors—for AbÉlard had left a repute for sanctity behind him—a great lime-tree under which he used to sit and read between exercises. Peter had gone so far as to make him prior of the studies of the brethren, so lightly did he hold the charge of heresy. The abbot has given us, in a later letter to Heloise, an enthusiastic picture, drawn from the purely Buddhist point of view, of AbÉlard’s closing days. With a vague allusion to this letter certain ecclesiastical writers represent AbÉlard as a sinner up to the time of the Council of Sens, and a convert and penitent in the brief subsequent period. In point of fact there was little change in the soul of the fallen man, beyond a weary resignation of his hope of cleansing the Church, involving, as this did, a more constant preoccupation with the world to come. The abbot says, in support of his declaration, that AbÉlard had cast a radiance on their abbey, that ‘not a moment passed but he was either praying or reading or writing or composing’; and again: ‘If I mistake not I never saw his equal in lowliness of habit and conduct, so much so that Germain did not seem more humble nor Martin poorer than he to those who were of good discernment.’ The ‘good discernment’ reminds us that we must not take at too literal a value this letter of comfort to the widowed abbess. AbÉlard had been an ascetic and a devout man since his frightful experience at Paris twenty-five years previously. With the fading of his interest in the things of earth, and in his sure consciousness of approaching death, his prayers would assuredly be longer and his indifference to comfort and honour more pronounced.
But we have a clear indication that there was no change in his thoughts, even in that last year, with regard to the great work of his life and the temper of his opponents. During the quiet months of teaching at Cluny, a certain ‘Dagobert and his nephew’ asked him for a copy of his dialectical treatise, one of his earliest writings. It is impossible to say whether this Dagobert was his brother at Nantes (where Astrolabe also seems to have lived) or a monastic ‘Brother Dagobert.’ Most probably it was the former, because he speaks of the effort it costs him, ill and weary of writing as he is, to respond to their ‘affection.’ He does not copy, but rewrites his dialectics, so that we have in the work his last attitude on his studies and his struggles. It is entirely unchanged. Jealousy, hatred, and ignorance are the sole sources of the hostility to his work. They say he should have confined himself to dialectics (as Otto von Freising said later); but he points out that his enemies quarrelled even with his exclusive attention to dialectics, firstly because it had no direct relation to faith, and secondly because it was indirectly destructive of faith. He has still the old enthusiasm for reason and for the deepening and widening of our natural knowledge. Both knowledge and faith come from God, and cannot contradict each other. It was the last gleam of the dying light, but it was wholly unchanged in its purity.
With the approach of spring the abbot sent the doomed man to a more friendly and familiar climate. Cluny had a priory outside the town of Chalon-sur-SaÔne, not far from the bank of the river. It was one of the most pleasant situations in Burgundy, in the mild valley of the Seine, which AbÉlard had learned to love. But the last struggle had exhausted his strength, and the disease, variously described as a fever and a disease of the skin, met with little resistance. He died on the 21st of April 1142, in the sixty-third year of his age.
How deeply he had impressed the monks of St. Marcellus during his brief stay with them becomes apparent in the later history, which recalls the last chapter in the lives of some of the most popular saints. It will be remembered that AbÉlard had, in one of his letters to Heloise, asked that his body might be buried at the Paraclete, ‘for he knew no place that was safer or more salutary for a sorrowing soul.’ Heloise informed the abbot of Cluny of the request, and he promised to see it fulfilled. But he found that the monks of St. Marcellus were violently opposed to the idea of robbing them of the poor body that had been hunted from end to end of France whilst the great mind yet dwelt in it. There have often been such quarrels, sometimes leading to bloodshed, over the bodies of the saints. However, the abbot found a means to steal the body from the monastery chapel in the month of November, and had it conveyed secretly, under his personal conduct, to the Paraclete.
We have a letter which was written by the abbot about this time to Heloise. I have already quoted the portion in which he consoles her with a picture of the edifying life and death of her husband. The first part of the letter is even more interesting in its testimony to the gifts and character of the abbess herself. Peter the Venerable was, it will be remembered, a noble of high origin, an abbot of great and honourable repute, a man of culture and sober judgment.
‘For in truth,’ he says, after an allusion to some gifts—probably altar-work—that she had sent him, ‘my affection for thee is not of recent growth, but of long standing. I had hardly passed the bounds of youth, hardly come to man’s estate, when the repute, if not yet of thy religious fervour, at least of thy becoming and praiseworthy studies, reached my ears. I remember hearing at that time of a woman who, though still involved in the toils of the world, devoted herself to letters and to the pursuit of wisdom, which is a rare occurrence.... In that pursuit thou hast not only excelled amongst women, but there are few men whom thou hast not surpassed.’ He passes to the consideration of her religious ‘vocation,’ in which, of course, he discovers a rich blessing. ‘These things, dearest sister in the Lord,’ he concludes, ‘I say by way of exhortation, not of flattery.’ Then, after much theological and spiritual discussion, he says: ‘It would be grateful to me to hold long converse with thee on these matters, because I not only take pleasure in thy renowned erudition, but I am even more attracted by that piety of which so many speak to me. Would that thou didst dwell at Cluny!’
This is the one woman (and wife, to boot) to whom Bernard could have referred in justification of his equivocal remark to a stranger that AbÉlard ‘busied himself with women.’ We have, however, little further record of the life of the unfortunate Heloise. Shortly after the body of her husband has been buried in the crypt of their convent-chapel, we find her applying to Peter of Cluny for a written copy of the absolution of AbÉlard. The abbot sent it; and for long years the ashes of the great master were guarded from profanation by this pitiful certificate of his orthodoxy. In the same letter Heloise thanks the abbot for a promise that the abbey of Cluny will chant the most solemn rites of the Church when her own death is announced to them; she also asks Peter’s favourable influence on behalf of Astrolabe, her son, who has entered the service of the Church.
Heloise survived her husband by twenty-one years. There is a pretty legend in the Chronicle of the Church of Tours that the tomb of AbÉlard was opened at her death and her remains laid in it, and that the arms of the dead man opened wide to receive her whose embrace the hard world had denied him in life. It seems to have been at a later date that their ashes were really commingled. At the Revolution the Paraclete was secularised, and the remains of husband and wife began a series of removals in their great sarcophagus. In 1817 they found a fitting rest in PÈre Lachaise.
