History of My Calamities & Works 1 part 2/4

'Discoursing on this and the like,' says he, 'whom of Christians would Theophrastus not put to shame?' and so forth. The same author, in the same place: 'Cicero,' he says, 'being asked by Hirtius, after the repudiation of Terentia, to marry his sister, altogether forbore to do so, saying that he could not give his labor alike to a wife and to philosophy.' He does not say merely 'give his labor,' but adds 'alike,' being unwilling to do anything that should be set equal to the study of philosophy. But to pass over now this hindrance to philosophical study, consider the very condition of a respectable manner of life. For what fellowship is there of scholars with serving-maids, of writing-desks with cradles, of books or writing-tablets with distaffs, of styluses or pens with spindles?

Who, in short, intent on sacred or philosophic meditations, could endure the wailing of infants, the lullabies of nurses who soothe them, the tumultuous crowd of the household, in men and women alike? Who will be able to tolerate those unseemly and constant filthinesses of little ones? The rich, you will say, can do this, whose palaces or ample houses have separate quarters, whose opulence does not feel the expenses nor is tormented by daily anxieties. But this, I say, is not the condition of philosophers which is of the rich; nor will those who are devoted to riches or entangled in secular cares have leisure for divine or philosophic offices.

Whence also the distinguished philosophers of old, greatly despising the world—not so much leaving the age as fleeing it—forbade themselves all pleasures, that they might find rest in the embraces of philosophy alone. One of them, and the greatest, Seneca, instructing Lucilius, says: 'Philosophy is not to be pursued only when you have leisure... All things must be neglected that we may attend to this, for which no time is great enough... It matters little whether you omit philosophy or interrupt it; for it does not remain where it was broken off... Occupations must be resisted, and not unraveled but put away.' What therefore those whom we now truly call monks endure for the love of God, this the noble philosophers who arose among the nations endured out of desire for philosophy.

For among every people—whether Gentile, Jewish, or Christian—there have always been some who excelled the rest in faith or in honesty of morals, and who separated themselves from the people by some singularity of continence or abstinence. Among the Jews indeed of old there were the Nazirites, who consecrated themselves to the Lord according to the law, or the sons of the prophets, followers of Elijah or Elisha, whom—blessed Jerome bearing witness—we read of as monks in the Old Testament; and lastly those three philosophic sects which Josephus, distinguishing them in his book of Antiquities, names some Pharisees, some Sadducees, and some Essenes.

But among us there are monks, who namely imitate either the common life of the apostles, or that earlier and solitary life of John. Among the Gentiles, however, as has been said, there were the philosophers; for they referred the name of wisdom or philosophy not so much to the perception of knowledge as to the religion of life, as we have learned even from the very origin of this name, and by the testimony also of the saints themselves. Whence comes also that passage of blessed Augustine, in the eighth book of the City of God, where he distinguishes the kinds of philosophers: 'The Italic school had as its author Pythagoras of Samos, from whom also the very name of philosophy is said to have arisen;

for whereas before, those were called wise men who seemed to surpass others by a certain manner of praiseworthy life, when this man was asked what he professed, he answered that he was a philosopher—that is, a student or lover of wisdom—since to profess oneself wise seemed most arrogant.' In this passage, therefore, when it is said 'those who seemed to surpass others by a certain manner of praiseworthy life,' and so forth, it is plainly shown that the wise men of the nations—that is, the philosophers—were so named rather from the praise of their life than of their knowledge. But how soberly and continently they themselves lived, it is not for me now to gather from examples, lest I should seem to teach Minerva herself.

But if laymen and Gentiles thus lived—bound by no profession of religion—what ought you, a cleric and a canon, to do, lest you should prefer base pleasures to the divine offices, lest this Charybdis should swallow you headlong, lest you should plunge yourself shamelessly and irrevocably into these obscenities? If you do not care for the prerogative of a cleric, at least defend the dignity of a philosopher. If reverence for God is despised, let at least the love of honesty temper your shamelessness. Remember that Socrates was married, and by how foul a mishap he himself first expiated this blot upon philosophy, so that thereafter others might be made more cautious by his example. This Jerome himself does not pass over, writing thus of Socrates in his first book Against Jovinian:

"On one occasion, when he had withstood the endless abuse that Xanthippe poured down on him from above and was then drenched with filthy water, he answered nothing more than this — wiping his head, he said: 'I knew that after such thunder a downpour was sure to follow.'" She added, moreover, how dangerous it would be for me to take her back, and how much dearer it would be to her, and more honourable for me, that she be called my mistress rather than my wife, so that she might keep me for herself by grace alone, and no force of the marriage-bond might bind me. And she said that the longer we were separated for a time, the more welcome would be the joys we received from our meeting, the rarer they were.

Urging these and similar things, whether to persuade or dissuade me, since she could not bend my folly and yet could not bear to offend me, she ended her plea with a deep sigh and tears, concluding thus: "One thing remains at the last," she said, "that in the ruin of us two, the grief that follows be no less than the love that went before." Nor in this, as the whole world has come to acknowledge, was she lacking the spirit of prophecy. And so, after our little son had been born and entrusted to my sister, we returned secretly to Paris; and a few days later, after keeping private night-vigils of prayer in a certain church, there, at break of dawn, in the presence of her uncle and some of our friends or his own, we were joined together by the nuptial blessing.

Then at once we parted secretly and went our separate ways, and thereafter saw each other only rarely and in secret, hiding as much as we could what we had done. But her uncle and his household, seeking some solace for their disgrace, began to make our marriage public and to break the faith pledged to me concerning it; she, on the contrary, called down curses and swore that this was utterly false. At this he was deeply provoked and heaped frequent insults upon her.

When I learned of this, I sent her to a certain abbey of nuns near Paris, called Argenteuil, where she herself had once as a girl been brought up and educated, and I had garments of religion suited to the monastic life — except for the veil — made ready for her, and clothed her in them. On hearing this, her uncle and her kinsmen and relatives by marriage supposed that I had now grossly deceived them, and that by having her made a nun I wished thus easily to be rid of her.

At this they were violently enraged and conspired together against me; and one night, while I was resting and asleep in an inner chamber of my lodging — a certain servant of mine having been bribed with money — they punished me with a most cruel and shameful vengeance, one which the world received with the utmost astonishment: namely, by cutting off those parts of my body with which I had committed the thing they bewailed. They then quickly took to flight, but two of them who could be seized were deprived of eyes and genitals; one of these was the aforesaid servant who, while staying with me in my service, had been led by greed to this betrayal.

When morning came, the whole city gathered to me, and with what astonishment they were stunned, with what lamentation they afflicted themselves, with what outcry they distressed me, with what wailing they confounded me — it is difficult, indeed impossible, to express. Above all the clergy and especially our own scholars tormented me with unbearable laments and howls, so that I was far more wounded by their compassion than by the pain of the wound, and felt the shame more than the blow, and was afflicted more by disgrace than by grief. There came to my mind how great a glory I had lately enjoyed, by how easy and base a fall this was now brought low — nay, utterly extinguished; by how just a judgement of God I was being punished in that very portion of my body in which I had sinned;

by how just a betrayal he whom I had earlier betrayed had repaid me in kind; with what praise my rivals would extol so manifest a retribution; what perpetual sorrow and crushing grief this blow would bring upon my parents and friends; with what widespread report this singular infamy would seize hold of the whole world. What way would lie open to me henceforth? With what face could I go out in public, to be pointed at by everyone's fingers, gnawed by everyone's tongues, made a monstrous spectacle to all!

Nor did it confound me a little that, according to the killing letter of the Law, so great is the abomination of eunuchs before God, that men made eunuchs by having their testicles cut off or crushed are forbidden to enter the church as foul and unclean, and such animals too are utterly rejected in sacrifice. In the Book of Numbers, chapter 22: "You shall not offer to the Lord any animal whose testicles are crushed, or bruised, or cut, or removed." In Deuteronomy, chapter 23: "A eunuch, whose testicles are crushed or cut off, and whose member is severed, shall not enter the church of God." Set in so wretched a state of ruin, I confess that it was confusion arising from shame, rather than devotion of conversion, that drove me to the hiding-places of the monastic cloister.

She, however, had already at my bidding willingly taken the veil and entered the monastery. Thus we both took up the sacred habit together — I indeed in the abbey of Saint-Denis, she in the aforesaid monastery of Argenteuil. And I remember that when many, pitying her, vainly sought to deter her youth from the yoke of the monastic rule as from an unbearable punishment, she, bursting forth amid tears and sobs as best she could into that lament of Cornelia, said: "O greatest of husbands! O one unworthy of my marriage-bed! Had Fortune so much right over a head so lofty? Why did I wed you in my wickedness, if I was destined to make you wretched?

Now receive the penalty — but one that I shall willingly pay." And with these words she straightway hastened to the altar, and at once took from the altar the veil blessed by the bishop, and bound herself before all to the monastic profession. But I had scarcely yet recovered from my wound when the clergy flocked to me and, both from our abbot and from myself, demanded with unceasing entreaties that what I had hitherto done out of desire for money or praise, I should now do for the love of God, devoting my labour to study — mindful that the talent entrusted to me by the Lord would be required back from me by Him with interest, and that I, who had hitherto attended chiefly to the rich, should now apply myself to instructing the poor.

And on this account especially I should recognize that I had now been touched by the Lord's hand, that, being more freely withdrawn from the enticements of the flesh and the tumultuous life of the world, I might give myself to the study of letters, and become a true philosopher not so much of the world as of God. Now that abbey of ours, to which I had betaken myself, was of a wholly worldly and most depraved life, and its abbot himself, the greater in rank above the rest, was so much the worse in life and the more notorious in infamy. Their intolerable filthiness I frequently and vehemently reproved, now privately, now publicly, and so made myself beyond measure burdensome and hateful to all. They, greatly delighted at the daily importunity of our disciples, seized upon an occasion by which to remove me from themselves.

And so, while they long pressed and importunately urged this, and our abbot and brothers also intervened, I withdrew to a certain cell, intending to devote myself to the schools after my customary manner. To these, indeed, so great a multitude of scholars flocked that neither was there room for their lodgings nor land enough for their food.

There, since it was more fitting to my profession, devoting my study chiefly to sacred reading, I did not wholly cast aside the discipline of the secular arts, to which I had been more accustomed and which they especially sought from me; rather, out of these I fashioned a kind of hook, by which to draw to the reading of true philosophy those whom I had baited with a philosophical relish — just as Ecclesiastical History records that Origen, the greatest of Christian philosophers, was wont to do. But since the Lord seemed to have bestowed on me no less grace in divine Scripture than in secular learning, our schools began greatly to multiply through reading of both kinds, while all the others were vehemently diminished.

By this I stirred up against myself the chief envy and hatred of the masters, who, disparaging me in everything they could, always cast two charges especially against me in my absence: namely, that it was greatly contrary to a monk's calling to be occupied in the study of secular books, and that I had presumed to approach the mastership of divine reading without a master — so that, indeed, every exercise of scholarly teaching might be forbidden me. To this end they unceasingly incited bishops, archbishops, abbots, and whatever persons of religious name they could.

Now it happened that I first applied myself to discussing the very foundation of our faith by analogies drawn from human reason, and composed for our scholars a certain theological treatise On the Divine Unity and Trinity, since they were demanding human and philosophical reasons, and clamouring rather for what could be understood than for what could merely be said — saying indeed that the utterance of words was superfluous which understanding did not follow, that nothing could be believed unless first understood, and that it was ridiculous for anyone to preach to others what neither he nor those he taught could grasp with the understanding, the Lord Himself reproving such as blind leaders of the blind.

When very many had seen and read this treatise, it began greatly to please all in common, since in it satisfaction seemed to be given to all alike upon these questions. And because these questions seemed difficult above all others, the greater their weight had been, the greater was judged to be the subtlety of their solution. At this my rivals, fiercely inflamed, gathered a council against me — chiefly those two old plotters, namely Alberic and Lotulf, who, now that their masters and ours, namely William and Anselm, were dead, sought to reign as it were alone after them, and even to succeed them as their heirs.

Now since both governed schools at Reims, by frequent insinuations they stirred up their archbishop Ralph against me, so that, having summoned Conon, bishop of Palestrina, who was then exercising the office of legate in Gaul, they might hold a certain little gathering under the name of a council in the city of Soissons, and invite me to bring with me that little work on the Trinity which I had composed; and so it was done. But before I arrived there, those two aforesaid rivals of ours so defamed me among clergy and people that the people nearly stoned me and the few of our disciples who had come, on the first day of our arrival, saying that I preached and had written that there are three gods, as had been instilled into them.

But as soon as I came to the city, I went to the legate and handed over to him our little book to be inspected and judged; and I offered myself ready for correction or satisfaction, if I had written or said anything that dissented from the catholic faith. He, however, at once ordered me to deliver that very little book to the archbishop and to those rivals of mine, that they themselves might judge of it — they who were accusing me on this very matter: so that this too might be fulfilled in me: "And our enemies are our judges." But they, inspecting and turning over the book again and again, and finding nothing they would dare to bring forth against me in open hearing, deferred until the end of the council the condemnation of the book for which they were panting.

But I, on each of the days before the council sat, expounded publicly to all the catholic faith according to what I had written; and with great admiration all who heard commended both the clarity of my words and our meaning. When the people and clergy saw this, they began to say to one another: "Behold, now he speaks openly, and no one says anything against him; and the council, which, as we have heard, was gathered chiefly against him, hastens to its end. Have the judges perhaps recognized that they rather than he are in error?" By this our rivals were daily inflamed more and more.

Now one day Alberic, approaching me with a testing spirit, along with some of his disciples, after some flattering conversation said that he marvelled at a certain thing he had noted in that book: namely that, although God begot God, and there is but one God, I yet denied that God begot Himself. To him I at once replied: "On this point, if you wish, I will offer a reason." — "We care not," said he, "for human reason or your judgement in such matters, but only for the words of authority." To him I said: "Turn the page of the book, and you will find the authority"; and the book which he himself had brought with him was at hand. I turned to the place I knew, which he had by no means found, or which sought only what would harm me;

and it was the will of God that what I wanted came quickly to my eye. Now the sentence was entitled Augustine, On the Trinity, Book I: "He who supposes that it belongs to God's power that He should have begotten Himself errs the more, in that not only is God not so, but neither is a spiritual creature, nor a corporeal one. For there is no thing whatsoever that begets itself." When his disciples who were present heard this, they were dumbfounded and blushed. But he, to protect himself in some way, said: "It must be rightly understood." I, however, rejoined that this was nothing new, but that it had no bearing on the present case, since he himself had asked only for words, not the sense;

but that, if he were willing to attend to the sense and the reasoning, I declared myself ready to show him, according to his own statement, that he had fallen into that heresy by which he who is father is the son of himself. On hearing this, he straightway became as it were furious and turned to threats, asserting that neither my reasons nor my authorities would avail me in this case. And so he departed. But on the last day of the council, before they sat down, the legate and the archbishop, with my rivals and certain persons, long began to deliberate what should be decreed concerning me and our book, for which they had chiefly been convened.

And since, from my words or from the writing that was before them, they had nothing they might allege against me, while all kept silent for a little or now disparaged me less openly, Geoffrey, bishop of Chartres, who excelled the other bishops both in the name of religion and in the dignity of his see, thus began: "You know, my lords all who are present, that the teaching of this man, of whatever sort it be, and his talent, in whatever he has studied, have had many admirers and followers, and have greatly suppressed the fame of his masters as well as of ours, and that his vine, as it were, has spread its branches from sea to sea.

If you burden this man with a prejudgement — which I do not think you will — even if rightly, know that you will offend many, and that there will be no lack of very many who will wish to defend him, especially since in the present writing we see nothing that holds any open ground for calumny; and because, according to that saying of Jerome: 'Courage always has rivals in the open, and the lightnings strike the highest peaks,' take heed lest by acting violently you confer on him more renown, and acquire for ourselves more guilt through envy than for him through justice.

"For false rumour," as the aforesaid doctor recalls, "is quickly suppressed, and a later life passes judgement on an earlier one." But if you are minded to proceed canonically against him, let his doctrine or writing be brought into the midst, and let him, being questioned, be free to answer, so that, convicted or having confessed, he may be wholly silenced — at least according to that saying of blessed Nicodemus, who, desiring to free the Lord Himself, said: "Does our law judge a man unless it first hear from him, and know what he does?" On hearing this, my rivals at once clamoured and cried out:

"O wise counsel, that we should contend against his verbosity, against whose arguments or sophisms the whole world could not stand!" But surely it was far more difficult to contend with Christ Himself, whom nevertheless Nicodemus, according to the sanction of the law, invited to be heard. But when the bishop could not bring their minds round to what he had proposed, he attempted by another route to curb their envy, saying that the few who were present could not suffice for the discussion of so great a matter, and that this cause needed a fuller examination. And he advised further only this: that my abbot, who was present, should bring me back to my abbey, that is, the monastery of Saint-Denis;

and there, with more and more learned persons convened, it should be determined by a more diligent examination what ought to be done about this. The legate assented to this latest counsel, and so did all the rest. Then the legate at once rose to celebrate Mass before he entered the council, and through that bishop sent me the granted leave — namely, to return to our monastery, there to await what had been agreed.

Then my rivals, thinking they had accomplished nothing if this business were conducted outside their own diocese — where, namely, they could exercise no force — and who in fact trusted less in justice, persuaded the archbishop that it would be exceedingly ignominious to him if this case were transferred to another hearing, and dangerous if I thus escaped. And running at once to the legate, they changed his sentence and dragged him, unwilling, to this: that he should condemn the book without any inquiry and at once burn it in the sight of all, and confine me in another's monastery under perpetual enclosure.

For they said that this ought to suffice for the condemnation of the little book: that I had presumed to read it publicly when it had been commended by the authority of neither the Roman pontiff nor the Church, and that I had already handed it over to many for copying; and that it would be most profitable for the Christian faith if, by my example, the like presumption of many should be forestalled. But because that legate was less lettered than was needful, he relied greatly on the counsel of the archbishop, as the archbishop did on theirs. When the bishop of Chartres had foreseen this, he at once reported these machinations to me, and earnestly exhorted me to bear it the more lightly the more violently it was plain to all that they were acting;

and that I should not doubt that this violence of so manifest an envy would greatly harm them and profit me; nor should I be in any way disturbed about the enclosure of the monastery, knowing for certain that the legate himself, who was doing this under compulsion, would set me wholly free a few days after he had departed from here. And so, weeping with me as best he could, he himself wept and consoled me. Being therefore summoned at once to the council, I came; and without any examination of inquiry they compelled me with my own hand to cast my aforesaid book into the fire; and so it was burned. Yet, that they might not seem to say nothing, one of my adversaries muttered that he had detected it written in the book that the Father alone is God Almighty.

When the legate caught the drift of this, greatly astonished, he replied to him that not even of any little boy ought it to be believed that he would so err, since the common faith, said he, both holds and professes that there are three Almighty. On hearing this, a certain Thierry, a schoolmaster, mockingly added that saying of Athanasius: "And yet not three Almighties, but one Almighty." When his own bishop began to rebuke and repress him as if guilty of speaking against majesty, he boldly resisted, and, as if calling to mind the words of Daniel, said: "Thus, foolish sons of Israel, not judging nor knowing what is true, you have condemned a son of Israel.

Return to judgement, and judge the judge himself, whom you set up as such a judge for the instruction of the faith and the correction of error; who, when he ought to have judged, condemned himself by his own mouth — divine mercy today plainly delivering the innocent, just as of old it delivered Susanna from her false accusers." Then the archbishop, rising, with words changed as was fitting, confirmed the sentence of the legate, saying: "Truly, my lord, almighty is the Father, almighty the Son, almighty the Holy Spirit; and whoever dissents from this is plainly astray, and is not to be heard.

And now, if it please, it is good that that brother set forth his faith before all, so that it may, as is fitting, be either approved or disapproved and corrected." But when I rose to profess and set forth my faith, that I might express in my own words what I felt, my adversaries said that nothing else was needful for me but that I should recite the Creed of Athanasius, which any boy whatever could do equally well. And, lest I should plead ignorance as an excuse, as one who had not those words in use, they had a written copy brought to be read. I read it amid sighs, sobs, and tears, as best I could.