Abelard, Peter

Abelard, Peter (1079–1142/3), philosopher and theologian. ( Abailard, used by some scholars, is probably nearer the original form of his name than the traditional spelling.) He lectured at Paris in dialectics and then in theology until the tragic issue of his love-affair with Héloïse caused him to retire to the monastery of St-Denis in 1117/8. Roscelin and others then attacked the orthodoxy of his teaching on the Trinity, and he was condemned unheard at the Council of Soissons (1121). He returned to St-Denis, but his outspoken criticism of the legends of St Dionysius (the patron of the abbey) led to his flight. He set up an oratory called the Paraclete, near Troyes, where Héloïse later became abbess of a house of nuns. In 1127 Abelard became Abbot of St-Gildas, but by 1136 he was again teaching in Paris. In 1140 St Bernard denounced his teaching and several propositions from his writings were condemned at the Council of Sens.

His extensive writings include Sic et Non, a collection of apparently conflicting excerpts from the Bible and the Fathers on a number of questions, intended to help the reader to reconcile the contradictions by making him aware of the difference between authority itself and the different forms in which it is expressed; the Theologia Summi Boni, in which he sought to show how the doctrine of the Trinity might be understood by way of ‘analogies provided by human reason’; and several well-known hymns, among them ‘O quanta qualia’ (‘O what the joy and the glory must be’). His philosophical and theological doctrines were largely determined by his early interest in universals. He maintained that only individuals could be described as things (‘res’), and that language represented an abstraction from these things. The ‘vox’ or ‘nomen’ of language could not be considered a thing, but only a concept, because the qualities shared by individuals are not in themselves things, but the results of a mental act. Later he gave more importance to the question of meaning in language. The understanding of the thing, which is required for words to have meaning, is at least in part (he said) a true understanding of the thing as it was conceived in the mind of God. In his Ethics he argued that sin consisted not in any action, but in contempt for the wishes of God. His aim was not simply to set faith against reason but rather to question the content of faith in order to gain a fuller perception of it. Many later authors took up his method and his influence is evident in the history of scholasticism.