7. Apologia against Bernard of Clairvaux
apologia against bernard of clairvaux The work discussed and translated here has been known in Latin both after its intended target as the Apologia contra Bernardum (Apologia against Bernard) and after its opening words as the Apologia "Ne iuxta Boethianum" (Apologia [with the Opening Words] "In Keeping with That Dictum of Boethius"). The Gesta Frederici imperatoris (Deeds of Emperor Frederick), which the Cistercian Otto of Freising (after 1111–1158) composed shortly after Abelard's death, refers to the text as the Apollogeticum (sic) of Abelard and quotes its opening words.1
Thomas of Morigny refers to it both as the Apologia and the Apologeticum.2 Most emphatically not to be confused with Abelard's Apologia is another against Bernard and others who condemned Peter Abelard, the earliest known writing by Berengar of Poitiers, an extremely satirical text written soon after the Council of Sens, which Berengar had himself witnessed.3
1. Otto of Freising, Gesta Frederici, 1.52, ed. Schmale, pp. 234, line 28–236, line 11;
Deeds of Frederick, 1.51 (49), trans. Mierow, 87–88. On Otto's observations on Abelard, see Robert Folz, "Otton de Freising, témoin de quelques controverses intellectuelles de son temps," Bulletin de la Société historique et archéologique de Langres 13 (1958): 70–89, at 77–78, and Fiorella Vergani, "'Sententiam vocum seu nominum non caute theologiae admiscuit': Ottone di Frisinga di fronte ad Abelardo," Aevum 63 (1989): 193–224.
2. For references, see Apologia contra Bernardum, ed. Buytaert, 359.
3. Ed. Rodney M. Thomson, "The Satirical Works of Berengar of Poitiers: An Edition with Introduction," Mediaeval Studies 42 (1980): 89–138, at 111–38. For fundamental analysis, see Luscombe, School of Abelard, 29–49.
bernard of clairvaux Around the time of the Council of Sens Abelard undertook to rebut the list of his alleged heresies that Bernard of Clairvaux and his allies had compiled.4 Bernard and Abelard's other critics took unanimous offense at Abelard's methods in theology in general as well as at specific doctrines they believed him to hold.5 For his information about Abelard's methods and doctrines, Bernard relied on a compilation of capitula ("headings," "sections," or "counts" of an indictment) that William of St. Thierry, his fellow Cistercian, assembled.6 William drew in turn on a culling that was accomplished by an unidentified excerptor from a lost work known as the Liber sententiarum (Book of Sentences or Book of Opinions).7 Other collections of sentences are extant, which seem to rest (directly or indirectly) on notes of students who heard his lectures.8 Insofar as the nature of the Liber sententiarum can be determined, it seems to have been an altogether different sort of work from run-of-the-mill "sentences" or opinions. Although Bernard and his party held it to be representative of Abelard's teaching and thinking, Abelard staunchly denied authorship of it.
Bernard directed a letter to Pope Innocent II (which circulated among a wider audience than even the curia alone) as a broadside against the heretical doctrines he accused Abelard of having espoused.9 To defend himself, Abelard eventually wrote an apologia in which he sought to parry one by one each of the nineteen charges
4. Otto of Freising reports that Abelard wrote the Apologia much later, while at Cluny, but Otto makes mistakes on other details of Abelard's life and there is good reason to infer that this dating is inaccurate.
5. Luscombe, School of Peter Abelard, 110.
6. On the relationship between Abelard and William of St. Thierry, see Jean-Marie Dechanet, "L'amitié d'Abélard et de Guillaume de Saint-Thierry," Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique 35 (1939): 761–74.
7. On the excerptor, see Luscombe, School of Peter Abelard, 107–8. All that survives of the Liber sententiarum are twenty-five excerpts quoted against Abelard by his opponents; see Constant J. Mews, "The Sententie of Peter Abelard," Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale 53 (1986): 159–84, at 174–83.
8. For lists of these sententiae with bibliography, see Marenbon, Philosophy of Peter
Abelard, xviii–xix, and Cambridge Companion to Abelard, ed. Brower and Guilfoy, 339.
9. Letter 190, in Sancti Bernardi opera, 8: 17–40, discussed by Mews, Abelard and Heloise, 9–11.
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of heresy (the capitula) that had been leveled against his theology, in particular as presented in his Theologia "Scholarium" but also in another source, probably the anonymous Liber sententiarum. Abelard quotes these accusations word for word in the second section of the Apologia.
In the third section he points out that the wordings have not been taken verbatim from his own writings and that they are therefore based on an inauthentic work. Even so, Abelard seeks to answer and refute all the charges.10
The Apologia survives in fragments in only two manuscripts. One codex, Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, clm 28363, fol. 132v–35r
(twelfth century, French), is a fragment offering only the opening section. The other, Budapest, Országos Széchényi Könyvtár, MS Széchényi 16, fol. 1r–48v (twelfth century, Clairvaux), has quotations, two of which coincide with what is preserved in the Munich manuscript, incorporated by Thomas of Morigny in his Disputatio contra
Petrum Abaelardum (also known as the Disputatio catholicorum patrum).11
Thomas wrote at the instance of Hugh of Amiens (1085–1164, archbishop of Rouen 1130–1164). Although as a young man Thomas may have frequented the schools, by the time he formulated his "disputation" he had been a monk for more than forty and an abbot for more than thirty years. From 1140 to 1144 he lived in Paris at the Benedictine priory of St. Martin-des-Champs, while suspended from his abbacy by Archbishop Henry Sanglier of Sens. During his sojourn there he wrote the "disputation," probably in 1141.
It is impossible to calculate exactly what fraction of the whole Apologia we possess, but it is worth noting that the fragment in the Munich codex comprises an introduction, a rebuttal of Bernard's first charge, and a small piece of the arguments against Bernard's second charge. Fifteen fragments in the Budapest codex do not overlap with the one in the Munich codex. Thomas of Morigny identifies four of them (fragments 8–11) as taken from Abelard's refutation
10. For two very different, systematic discussions of the propositions, see Luscombe, School of Peter Abelard, 103–42, and A. Victor Murray, Abelard and St Bernard: A Study in Twelfth Century 'Modernism' (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1967), 49–88.
11. Ed. Nikolaus M. Häring, "Thomas von Morigny, Disputatio catholicorum patrum adversus dogmata Petri Abaelardi," Studi Medievali, 3rd series, 22 (1981): 299–376.
bernard of clairvaux of the fifth charge. Seven (fragments 1–7) would seem to come from the proof against a third charge, which differs from the wording and count of the charges as given in Abelard's own second section. Three
(fragments 13–15) appear to be drawn from the rebuttal of the seventh charge. Put together, this information suggests that we have full or partial information about Abelard's defense against charges 1–3, 5, and 7, but nothing whatsoever about 4, 6, and 8–19.
As far as dating is concerned, Thomas's Disputatio was itself a reply to the Apologia, which lends the Apologia the air of having been an open letter of sorts to Bernard. Since in the Disputatio Thomas fails to mention the Council of Sens or the condemnation of Abelard, and since the fragments of the Apologia make no reference to Sens either prospectively or retrospectively, it has been argued that both the Disputatio and the Apologia must be dated before the council. To be precise, the Disputatio would have been composed around Easter of 1141 and the Apologia against Bernard during the second half of 1140 or, at the latest, during the early winter of 1140–1141.12 Still, it is conceivable that the Apologia could have been written after Sens. The twofold evidence of other lists of heresies imputed to Abelard and of Bernard's correspondence gives the impression that the nineteen charges to which the Apologia responds resulted from a merging of documents, such as could have occurred at the council itself just as well as (or even rather than) beforehand.13
Closely related to the Apologia is the "Confession of Faith to Heloise," which has been preserved only because it is quoted by Berengar of Poitiers, a student and supporter of Abelard, in his own Apologia, a blistering diatribe against Bernard of Clairvaux and other critics of 12. This argument, advanced by Eligius M. Buytaert and accepted by John Marenbon, contradicts earlier scholarship, which held that the Apologia was written after Sens; see Buytaert, ed., Petri Abaelardi opera theologica 1, CCCM 11 (1969): 352–55, and Marenbon, Philosophy of Peter Abelard, 69, n. 54. In presenting the dating, I have honored the sequence of events that they advocated, but I have shifted forward most dates by roughly a year, to be consonant with the dating of 1141 for the Council of Sens, which Marenbon is now inclined to accept; see Marenbon, "Life, Milieu, and Intellectual Contexts," 17 and 39, n. 2.
13. On the lists, see Constant Mews, "The Lists of Heresies Imputed to Peter Abelard," Revue bénédictine 94 (1985): 73–100, reprinted in Mews, Abelard and His Legacy.
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Abelard who participated in the Council of Sens. Although Berengar intimates that what he quotes of the "Confession of Faith to Heloise" is only a fragment, it appears to be complete.
The "Confession of Faith to Heloise" is not to be confused with the "Confession of Faith Universis," which is a public document addressed to the Church rather than a personal statement directed to Heloise. This "Confession of Faith Universis" appears if not to recant, then at least to contradict, basic positions that in the Apologia and "Confession of Faith to Heloise" Abelard had either defended or interpreted as misrepresentations of his true views. More remains to be pieced together about the original contents and respective dating of all these texts.
About 1142 Abelard died. While his passing occurred too long after Sens to have been a direct consequence of it, it is hard not to infer that the stress surrounding both the council and the subsequent condemnation to perpetual silence were not conducive to good health and longevity. Peter the Venerable referred to Peter Abelard as a man who had attained the philosophy of Christ, but the title by which the abbot of Cluny designated him was magister rather than monachus.14 Abelard was a teacher first and foremost, and to have been silenced may have truly been the death of him.
This translation of the Apologia follows the Latin of Buytaert, ed., Petri Abaelardi Opera Theologica, 1, CCCM 11 (1969): 357–68. Buytaert's paragraph numbering has been maintained within square brackets. At the risk of cluttering the English with too many Arabic numerals, I have also supplied (without brackets) further numbers to designate each of the nineteen propositions within the second paragraph.
14. Letter 98, to Pope Innocent II, and Letter 115, to Heloise, in The Letters of Peter the Venerable, ed. Giles Constable, 2 vols., Harvard Historical Studies 78 (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), 1: 258–59, at 258, and 1: 303–8, at 306; trans.
Radice, pp. 215–16 and 217–23.
bernard of clairvaux Apologia [1] In keeping with that dictum of Boethius, "Time should not be wasted in prologues that accomplish nothing," it is needful to come to the matter at hand, so that the truth of the facts rather than a superfluity of words may establish my blamelessness.15 First the charges are to be recorded which seem to have been brought forth from my writings against me; then responses will be appended on the basis of which the logic of truth may refute the ill will of falsehood.
[2] Thus you say that I wrote concerning God:
1. "That the Father is full power, the Son a certain power, the Holy Spirit no power."16
2. "That the Holy Spirit is not of the Father's substance but rather the world soul."17
3. "That Christ did not take on flesh to free us from the devil's yoke."18
15. Boethius, De syllogismo categorico libri duo, Prologue, in PL 64: 794C. Choosing to cite this text as an auctoritas shows Abelard defiantly, and typically, asserting the supremacy of dialectic in reaching (and maybe even in constructing) determinations of truth.
16. This heading seemingly contradicts the Athanasian Creed on the equal power of the three persons in the Trinity. For the wording, see William of St. Thierry,
Disputatio aduersus Petrum Abaelardum, ed. Leclercq, "Les lettres de Guillaume de SaintThierry," 377–78; Bernard of Clairvaux, Letter 190, in Sancti Bernardi opera, 8: 39, line 2; and section 5 of Abelard's Apologia against Bernard. Henceforth I will not list all the parallels either internally within the Apologia or to William and Bernard, for which the interested reader should consult the apparatus fontium in Buytaert's edition.
17. The foundational study of the identification of the Christian Holy Spirit with the Platonic World Soul is Tullio Gregory, Anima mundi. La filosofia di Guglielmo di Conches e la scuola di Chartres, Pubblicazioni dell'Istituto di filosofia dell'Università di Roma
3 (Rome: G. C. Sansoni, 1955), 133–54. For Abelard's views, see Marenbon, "Life, Milieu, and Intellectual Contexts," 35–38.
18. This charge suggests that Abelard denied the Redemption or at least the need for the Redemption and that the Passion took place to display Christ's love rather than to redeem humankind from sin.
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4. "That neither 'God and man' nor 'this person' which is Christ is the third person in the Trinity."
5. "That free will in and of itself suffices for some good."
6. "That God can do only the things that he does, or renounce the things he renounces, either only in that way or at that time and not another."
7. "That God neither ought to nor can forestall evils."
8. "That we did not contract from Adam guilt but only punishment."
9. "That those who in ignorance crucified Christ did not sin."
10. "That whatever is done through ignorance is not to be considered a cause for guilt."
11. "That the spirit of the fear of God was not in Christ."
12. "That the power of binding and loosing has been given only to the apostles and not to their successors."19
13. "That a man is not made either better or worse on account of his actions."
14. "That omnipotence relates to the Father properly or specially, because it comes from no other, but that neither wisdom nor kindness do so."20
15. "That even chaste fear is excluded from the afterlife."21
16. "That the devil implants suggestions through the application of stones or herbs."
17. "That the coming at the end of the world could be ascribed to the Father."
19. This statement would deny the Church the power to excommunicate or to free people from sin by pardoning them.
20. The identifications of the Son as the wisdom of God and of the Holy Spirit as his love, benignity, or kindness, which did not originate with Abelard, are made passim in the Theologia "Scholarium."
21. Castus timor could be translated less literally as "the reverence of love"; see
Luscombe, School of Abelard, 128. The expression owes to Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, Sermo 22.6 (Psalm 118), ed. Dekkers and Fraipont, CCSL 40: 1740, lines 8–9, and 40: 1752, lines 24–25 and 34, and Sermo 1.7 (Psalm 127), 40: 1871, lines 3–4.
bernard of clairvaux 18. "That the soul of Christ did not descend to the underworld as such but only potentially."
19. "That neither action nor will nor desire nor the delight that occasions desire is a sin, and that we ought not to want it to be extinguished."
[3] Finally, in drawing to a close the aforementioned charges, the accuser says by way of conclusion: "These charges have been found partly in the book Theology of Master Peter, partly in the Book of Sentences of the same, and partly in the book entitled
Know thyself." By which person or persons they have been found, he did not add, because he could not indicate a finder of things that do not exist. Thanks be to God, however, as to what he claims is found in these books, where since such writings either cannot be found or were not mine, the writings themselves prove him wrong without my saying even a word.
[4] But seeing that, as blessed Augustine recalls, "he is cruel who neglects his reputation," and according to Cicero "silence is tantamount to a confession," let me give as I proposed some response to every single charge in order.22 Thus evidently I will maintain the policy according to which blessed Gregory instructed the faithful against the tongues of detractors, with these words:
It is to be known that just as we ought not in our zeal arouse the tongues of detractors, for fear that they perish, so too we ought to endure them, when aroused by their ill will, with calmness, so that our merit may increase; but sometimes also we ought to restrain them, that while spreading ill words about us they not corrupt the hearts of the blameless who could hear us to good effect.23
22. The quotation from Augustine is to be found in Sermo 355, in Sancti Aurelii Augustini Sermones selecti duodeviginti, ed. Cyrille Lambot, Stromata Patristica et Mediaevalia
1 (Utrecht, The Netherlands: Spectrum, 1950), 123–31, at 124 (=) PL 39.1569: "qui confidens conscientiae suae neglegit famam suam, crudelis est." Abelard also quotes it in other writings, as in Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, p. 102, line 1391; Sermon 33; Theologia Christiana 2.102; and Confessio fidei "Universis." The other quotation is Cicero, De inventione 1.32, also paired with the quotation from Augustine in the Confessio fidei "Universis."
23. Gregory the Great, Homiliae in Hiezechihelem prophetam, 1.9.17, ed. Adriaen, CCSL
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Moreover, heeding this advice of one who was saintly and distinguished in the assessment of morals, I endured for a long time your unendurable accusations with which you have been afflicting me, waiting to see if maybe, either for fear of sin or for respect of decency, you would leave off persecuting me in my innocence or if you would lessen the persecution you had begun. But now, because it is evident that your plan is to persist even more shamelessly in what you began shamelessly enough, I am forced to turn back against you your own barbs so that, because you aim arrows against your neighbor, you may receive them loosed against you, and thus may be fulfilled in you the words of the comic playwright: "If you set out to say what you wish, you will hear things you do not wish."24
Martial grows indignant against Fidentinus, who recited his book, that he recites his words poorly and makes them his own, rather than the author's. He grows indignant, I say, and he declares, "What you recite is mine, O Fidentinus, but when you recite poorly, it begins to be yours."25 The devil is held to blame who, interpreting the Scriptures wrongly, said to the Savior "that he has given his angels charge over you" [Matthew 4.6, quoting
Psalm 90.11] and so forth. Yet the devil, even if he interprets the Scriptures wrongly, does still cite the words of the Scriptures, to whatever meaning he may twist them back.26 But you, diverging
142 (1971): 132, lines 331–37; compare The Homilies of St. Gregory the Great on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, trans. Theodosia Gray, ed. Juliana Cownie (Etna, Calif.: Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 1990), 101. This quotation follows those from Augustine and Cicero in the Confessio fidei "Universis."
24. The source of this saying is Terence, Andria 920 (5.4.17).
25. Abelard quotes Martial, Epigram 1.38.1–2, with the omission of the word libellus at the end of the first line in the couplet. The Latin poet Martial lived from 38/41–101/104. Fidentinus is probably a fictitious name.
26. The saying in English, "The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose," originates with Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, 1.3.98 (Antonio, speaking of Shylock). The Latin "diabolus male Scripturas interpretatur" appears in Haimo of Auxerre (died
855), Homilia 28, in PL 118: 190C–203B, at 198A; "male interpretatur diabolus Scripturas" in Otfrid of Weißenburg (about 800–about 870), Glossae in Matthaeum 4.6, ed.
bernard of clairvaux from my words as well as my meaning, endeavor to make arguments on the basis of your fancies rather than my statements, and as you boast that you condemned my writings together with their author, you promulgate a sentence against yourself and your own writings instead. As charges you also bring against me some [of my words] as if heretical, which can be refuted by neither reason nor authority.
[5] Therefore, making a beginning with that first charge, I ask you first in which passage I said or wrote what you reprove: "That the Father is full power, the Son a certain power, the Holy Spirit no power." Produce the text if you can, and you may convict me as a heretic; but if you cannot do this, you undo yourself utterly by fabricating such great wrongs against your neighbor. But perhaps you will say that I did not write or deliver these words in fact but that I implied the same opinion albeit in different words. But if only you would express my opinion in such a way that you did not distort it in words, so that nothing of your slander would be left under discussion!
[6] I think that you were led particularly to this opinion, that you should believe evidently I said that the Son was a certain power and the Holy Spirit no power, because of certain words of mine in which, to differentiate between the begetting of the Son and the going forth of the Holy Spirit, I call the Son himself (as is sure)
"the wisdom of God" and the Holy Spirit his "love" or "kindness."27 For this reason I said that the wisdom of God was called a certain power of his (which is to say, the capacity of discerning all
Cesare Grifoni, CCCM 200 (2003), p. 77, lines 58–59; and "Diabolus scripturas sanctas quidem bene intellegit sed eas falso semper interpretatur," in Heiric of Auxerre
(841–876/877), Homiliae per circulum anni (written 865–870), 28, ed. Riccardo Quadri,
CCCM 116 (1992), p. 236, lines 242–43.
27. See Eileen F. Kearney, "Scientia and Sapientia: Reading Sacred Scriptures at the Paraclete," in From Cloister to Classroom: Monastic and Scholastic Approaches to Truth, ed. E.
Rozanne Elder, Spirituality of Western Christendom 3, Cistercian Studies Series 90
(Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1986), 111–29, at 111 and 123, n. 2.
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things truly), by which he can evidently discern or distinguish all things, so as to be unable in any case to go astray out of not knowing, because "all things are noted and open to his eyes" [Hebrews
4.13].28 I also said that his love relates to the affection of kindness rather than to the capacity of power, so that this love plainly should be called the "will" rather than the "power" of God; that best will of God, I say, by which he wills or arranges all things to be done, in the way in which they accord better, and also, to the best end to which he wishes all things to be done, to be brought into conformity, and in the way in which every single thing turns out as best it can. And so the love of God or goodness is his best will of doing or arranging all things in the best way, as I said, not the power of doing or arranging them. Never indeed ought love or kindness, in us or in God, to be called a "power," since to love or to be kind are not at all some power, seeing that often those who love more or who are kinder are less able to fulfill what they want, and those who have better wishes are less powerful, rich in affection but without resources in effect.
[7] Therefore, just as the wisdom of God, which we understand to be his Son, is a certain power or capacity of God—and that is to say, a power or capacity to discern or distinguish all things so that he is unable to go astray in anything out of not knowing— so his love or kindness, which we call the Holy Spirit, is his best will rather than power, as we have determined. For even if he who wishes something should also have the power, nonetheless the wish must not on that account be called the "power," since (it is evident) wishing something is not at all having that power. Certainly he who is animate and corporeal is not animateness or corporeality. And, to return to God, he who is eternal and incarnate is not eternity and incarnation.
28. Such a statement is found in the Theologia "Scholarium," 1.31, 2.113–14 (with the quotation of Hebrews 4.13), and 2.139. Further parallels to the Theologia "Scholarium" may be found in Buytaert's edition.
bernard of clairvaux [8] Thus although I said that the wisdom of God is a certain power of his, that is, the power of recognizing and discerning all things, and again that his love is not some power but will, I think, brother, that you arrived at that opinion because you believe me on this basis to assert that the Son of God, who is called his wisdom, is a certain power and that the Holy Spirit, which is believed to be his love, is no power. You are manifestly mistaken, brother, as if in no way comprehending the import of the words, and as if you did not have a share of that teaching which is the mistress of debate and which not only teaches to understand words but is able to discuss them once they have been understood.29 So know what you did not know, and learn what you have not learned, because although "the wisdom of God" may be in some way the same as "the Son of God," or "the charity of God" the same as "the Holy Spirit," yet that is not the same as saying or understanding that "the Son of God is some power of God" and "the wisdom of God is some power of his," or "the Holy Spirit is in no way the power of God" and "the charity of God (or his love) is in no way his power." For indeed it happens often that some words, when taken on their own, may be entirely of a given meaning, yet when placed in a construction and joined with the words of the construction, they change meaning, so that this sense of the construction may be true but that one false.
[9] It is clear that this is to be ascribed to creation, as well as to the creator himself. Of course "sitting" and "who sits" are the same in meaning, and likewise "father" and "having a son," or "having paternity," are not different in meaning. Although nevertheless it may be true of the person who is not sitting that he
"will be sitting," all the same it is not true that "he will be who sits." Or, although it may be true about this man that he "is that one's father," nevertheless it is not true that he "is having a son of that one" or "having paternity of that one."
29. The teaching in question is of course logic or dialectic. See Letter Thirteen.
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[10] And therefore concerning God there are some words with the same meaning which change sense when juxtaposed to the same words. To be sure, "God" is nothing other than "divinity" itself, and this noun "God" signifies nothing other than this noun
"divinity." If, however, I were to say "God is man" and "divinity is human," "God has suffered" and "divine nature has suffered," the meaning is then far different. One of them is accepted and the other is rejected. Likewise, although "God" is nothing other than "a divine substance" or "the substance of God," nevertheless we do not say that the substance of God is crucified, suffers the Passion, dies, or is born of the Virgin, even though we do not shrink to say this about God. Or although "God" is nothing other than "substance of God," nevertheless it is not the same to say
"to be from God" or "to be in God" as "from the substance of God" or "to be in the substance of God." Certainly the Apostle
[Paul], acting on account of God, said, "of whom [are] all things, by whom [are] all things, in whom [are] all things" [1 Corinthians
8.6: compare Romans 11.36], and according to John "of God many were born" [John 1.12–13]. Nevertheless, in no way can they be said to be born of divine substance. In addition, since God himself is spirit (that is, uniform spiritual substance and nothing else), man in fact is a corporeal and constructed thing.30 Surely it is not possible that just as we say "God is a man," so we grant that "the Holy Spirit is a man" or "the spiritual substance is corporeal," or "a uniform thing is also composite," or the Holy Spirit, who is
God, has flesh and bone because "God is man," and in fact man has flesh and bone?31
[11] In sum, as God is called his power and not another, and indeed his justice and not another, is it really possible that when he is said to be wisdom or charity, he must be denied to be his wis30. See John 4.24: "God is a spirit."
31. Compare Luke 24.39: "For a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me to have."
bernard of clairvaux dom or charity? But if God the Father is his wisdom and charity, is it possible that on this account we assume his Son or his Spirit to exist, since clearly the Son of God is the wisdom of God, or the Holy Spirit is his charity itself? Or although absolutely the same wisdom or charity belongs to the three persons, and the Son as well as the Holy Spirit has the wisdom of the Father and the love of the Father, although they know and love altogether the same, is it possible that the Son too or the Holy Spirit has the Son of the Father, as if born of him, or the Holy Spirit of the Father as if emanating from him? In any case, it is not fitting that this be granted on that basis, though the wisdom itself may be the Son of God and the charity of God the Holy Spirit.
[12] Thus even when we assume that the wisdom of God is a certain power of his, that is, the capacity of seeing everything, and even when we state that his love is his will rather than his power, nevertheless we are not compelled on this account to grant either that the Son of God is a certain power of his or that the Holy
Spirit is none. For though the three persons may be wholly of the same substance or power, just as entirely of the same substance and worthiness—for which reason too each one is called allpowerful, just as we set forth in the Theologia itself 32—it is not at all fitting that the Son rather than the Father be called a certain power or that the Holy Spirit be called none, since each of the three persons is equally powerful as the other two, equally wise, and equally kind, although the power is especially divine in the word "of the Father," just as the wisdom is divine in the name
"of the Son," or the goodness of divine charity is expressed in the name "of the Holy Spirit."
[13] And thus the meaning of words, in the same matters as well as in different ones, is to be weighed carefully, so that the truth of a sentence may be differentiated from the truth itself.
And thus when "the wisdom of God is a certain power of his" is 32. Theologia "Scholarium" 1.44, ed. Mews, CCCM 13: 124, lines 482–84.
apologia against bernard of clairvaux
said, that is, the power of discerning everything, it is as if we were to say that he was wholly God, that he was wise, and that God has this capacity of discernment—and this is true. But if however it should be stated "the Son of God is a certain power" as though on this basis he could be inferred to be able to do certain things but not everything, the meaning is altogether false. For in equal measure the power of the Son, like that of the Father, is able to do everything, and in equal measure the Father, like the Son, knows everything.33
[14] To respond in this manner also to the objections relating to what we taught about the Son and the wisdom of God, the solution about the Holy Spirit and the love of God will be easy, in that plainly when we say "the love of God is not some power," we do not however say "the Holy Spirit is in no way a power." On this account certainly love is to be called "power" neither in God nor in us, but "will," seeing that it must never be said that "to love" is
"to be able to do something" but rather "to have good will in regard to something." Indeed, the Holy Spirit is to be called power or powerful in equal measure with the Father or Son, because this power can accomplish whatever it wants no less than those.
[15] I think that I have answered your first objection adequately with these words, my accuser, brother Bernard. Now let us proceed to the remaining charges.
[16] The second of your accusations was when you take me to task for having said "that the Holy Spirit is not from the substance of the Father." To this I answer first that I assert openly in the same book, where you claim to find this, that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are utterly of the same substance or essence, that they are altogether the same substance or essence, and that the Son as much as the Holy Spirit are from the Father, the Son in fact
33. Compare John 16.30: "Now we know that thou knowest all things and thou needest not that any man should ask thee. By this we believe that thou camest forth from God."
bernard of clairvaux as born, the Holy Spirit indeed as proceeding [from him]; and that I do not stray from Catholics in any way in faith, even if by chance in words I seem different from, not inimical to, some one of them.
[17] But to answer you more fully on the basis of my work as well as my thinking, you may not have at all any reason why you should object . . .
Fragments from the Lost Portion of Abelard's Apologia Conserved by Thomas of Morigny From Abelard's Response to Proposition Number Two, "That the Holy Spirit is [. . .] the world soul."
[1] I call "the grace of God" anything that God parcels out of himself for the salvation of man, and anything that bestows upon him what he has not earned himself. Indeed, the Apostle [Paul] says: "There is a remnant saved according to the election of grace.
And if by grace, it is not now by works: otherwise grace is no more grace" [Romans 11.5–6]. Therefore the grace of God is in his chosen, because he has marked them out beforehand from eternity, and because in them he has inspired faith, merits which certainly antedate our own and without which we could not love him so as to earn the right to be saved. For the love which he brings about in us first through what has been said, is itself either the effect of God himself or his gift, and must be imputed to his grace before we can earn even the least bit of salvation. For this reason too the Apostle [Paul] says: "What hast thou that thou hast not received?"
[1 Corinthians 4.7].
[2] Therefore, too, free will itself, because it is a boon, is the gift of divine grace, and it is the very principle in which free will consists.
[3] Both free will and the principle in which it consists are common to the chosen and the wicked alike.
apologia against bernard of clairvaux
[4] Therefore, since the Lord confers reason upon the wicked as upon the chosen, may he also show the way by which one must attain blessedness, and may he summon us perpetually toward a perception of the same, which he offers to all, by his precepts and exhortations. Some men hearken to him in regard to these and comply with his precepts by living virtuously, that they may be accorded the rewards held out to them; others despise him and, lingering in their idleness, take flight from the toil of obedience.
[5] He has readied in advance the wicked, like the chosen, for virtuous living, that is (it is evident), by teaching, by advising, and by offering that capacity, so that no further preparation remains.
[6] But you say that God has not put good will in the wicked as in the chosen.
[7] The wicked are not to be blamed if they do not live righteously as do the chosen, since that grace for the righteousness of life, without which they can in no way live righteously, has been denied them.
From Abelard's Response to Proposition Number Four, "That neither 'God and man' nor 'this person' which is Christ is the third person in the Trinity."
[8] When you rebuke me for not saying that God and man are a single person in the Trinity, clearly you admit that you think it.
I wish to recognize your error, because it is so much contrary to sound faith. For God and man, being of two natures, cannot be called a single person in the Trinity, whether they are understood individually or together.
[9] Therefore, the humanity assumed by the Word must not be said to be some one among the three persons in that everlastingness, but rather the Word itself, to which it has been joined. Furthermore, if it must not be said of God and man as separate beings that they are some one person therein, it is much less fitting for it to be said
bernard of clairvaux about those two natures at once. For those two natures cannot be an everlasting thing, since one of them lacks everlastingness.
[10] That alone which was once in that Trinity, remains in the same person forever, and nothing new comes into the same Trinity, because it is not lawful to conceive of God as new.
[11] We must be on guard in all ways, that we not assert any such a thing to exist as has not been there forever, or posit something temporal in that timelessness, or something composed in that simplicity, or something corporeal in that incorporeality, or anything new in that antiquity.
[12] And because these two natures cannot be something everlasting since one of them lacks everlastingness, "God and man" are not a person in the Trinity.
From Abelard's Response to Proposition Number Six "That God can do in one way only the things which he does, or omits in one way only what he omits, either in that manner only, or at that time and no other."
[13] It is generally and without doubt to be maintained that whatever good God has in himself cannot either increase or diminish in him in any way. In fact, just as his power and his wisdom are coeternal in him, so the will that he has, in creating or disposing any things whatever, is coeternal with him.
[14] For it is not one thing to be powerful and another to be well disposed in God, in whom it is the same thing to be and to be God, as the preceding words make evident; and his will and his power are nothing other than himself. Augustine, in the seventh book of his Confessions [7.4.6], says: "And you will not be compelled against your will to anything, because your will is not greater than your power. However it would be greater, if you yourself were greater than you yourself. For the will and the power of God is God himself."34
34. Abelard uses this same passage from the Confessions in the Theologia "Summi boni"
apologia against bernard of clairvaux
[15] Therefore, if he can do only that which it is fitting for him to do or to will, truly he can do and can will to do only that which he wants at any time, and in that way only and likewise in that time in which he does it, because clearly it is not fitting for him either to do or to will to do this in any other way or at any other time.
2.33; Theologia Christiana 3.73; Theologia "Scholarium" 2.72; and Sic et non, 13.3–4, lines 14–17, ed. Boyer and McKeon, 142.
part iii Other Controversies