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Peter Abelard and the Makeover of Traditional Theology

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Peter Abelard and the Makeover of Traditional Theology CHAPTER FOUR OPENING THE MIND: PETER ABELARD AND THE MAKEOVER OF TRADITIONAL THEOLOGY I The Incident: Talent versus Tradition The incident with which this chapter begins is found in Abelard’s famous autobiographical letter which has come down to us as the Historia calamitatum, that remarkable text revealing how vindication and self-incrimination are two sides of the same literary coin. With this incident Abelard has cleverly immortalized himself to posterity as the typical obnoxious and overly self-confident student, whose audacity went so far as to challenge an established teacher for the sole purpose of showing off his own intellectual precocity. By sin- gling out the respected Anselm of Laon as target for his criticism, Abelard manifests how his failure to connect with any of his mas- ters’ teachings is in fact structural. Even more unsettling, however, is his readiness to discard the weight of the entire Christian tradi- tion, of which the teaching of Anselm of Laon is a mere case in point. Judging from Abelard’s conduct during this incident, he eas- ily qualifies for the title of the most troublesome quarrel monger in medieval theology. By this I mean to stress that, whether or not these and other incidents really happened, Abelard has outlined his account in such a way that it is designed above all to foreshadow or rather, to shed retroactive light upon his later condemnation at the council of Soissons in 1121. Before adopting a negative reader’s report on Abelard’s student manners as all but inevitable, inasmuch as his account is the product of authorial intent, let me briefly recount how it is recorded it in the Historia.1 1 See Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin (Paris, 21962), lines 164–221. In what fol- lows the translations of the HC are mostly taken from B. Radice, The Letters of Abelard and Heloise (Harmondsworth, 1974), 57–106. The most recent complete study of Peter Abelard is Michael T. Clanchy, Peter Abelard. A Medieval Life (Oxford, 1997). For a short survey of his life and works, see also C.J. Mews, Peter Abelard. Historical and Religious Writers of the Latin West: Authors of the Middle Ages 5 (Aldershot, 1995), 9–43. 130 chapter four As he tells us himself, already as a young man Abelard decided to exchange the weapons of the military for the armor of logic. Yet this decision only spurred him on to engage in substantial dialecti- cal combat with Roscelinus of Compiègne. His next opponent after coming to Paris was the Notre Dame logician and theologian William of Champeaux, whom Abelard forced to modify his position on uni- versals, after which William forced him out of his classroom. At this point Abelard decided to undertake the study of theology, as he transferred to Laon to attend the lectures of the well-known master Anselm there. Together with his brother Ralph, Anselm had built up the reputation of its cathedral school beyond anything the town had ever seen before. Hereafter the Historia recounts the famous inci- dent. For Anselm only teaches him disappointment, displaying what Abelard calls a ‘remarkable command of words, but their meaning was worthless and devoid of all sense’.2 Full of wit as was his style, for when he met Anselm he was already a trained dialectician, Abelard quickly loses interest in his master’s lectures, ridiculing them by his conspicuous absence. With his class visits becoming ever less frequent, Abelard’s class- mates begin playing their own part in this miniature classroom drama. Thus we see them engaged in the usual student effrontery as they ask him, the slightly older and more mature student who is a new- comer to theology, if he perhaps thinks that he can do a better job. To their astonishment Abelard answers in the affirmative. Having already professed that anyone can study Scripture with the aid of a commentary, thereby disqualifying the role of the master as essen- tially superfluous,3 he proves ready to accept the challenge implied in his fellow students’ questions, agreeing to act as their teacher. The students select a difficult passage from the prophet Ezekiel on which they ask him to comment. Immediately Abelard consents.4 Caught 2 See Historia calamitatum, lines 169–70: Verborum usum habebat mirabilem, sed sensum comtemtibilem et ratione vacuum. One cannot but think back to a similar disappoint- ment experienced by Augustine when he at last came to meet the famous Manichaean teacher Faustus, as recounted in Confessiones V.III.3–VII.13, ed. Verheijen, CCSL 27: 58–64. 3 See HC 192–95; trans. Radice, p. 63: ‘. but that I found it most surprising that for educated men the writings or glosses of the Fathers themselves were not sufficient for interpreting their commentaries without further instruction.’ 4 Unfortunately, the text of Abelard’s commentary on Ezekiel has not been pre- served. In the opening of his Hexaemeron-commentary Abelard calls Genesis, which.
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