我的苦難史與文集 第 1 章

Often examples provoke or assuage human feelings more than words do. Hence, after some consolation by a discourse delivered in person, I have resolved to write a letter of consolation to an absent friend concerning the very experiences of my own calamities, so that, in comparison with mine, you may recognize your own trials to be either nothing or slight, and may bear them more tolerably. I, then, born of a certain town built at the entrance to lesser Brittany — removed, I believe, some eight miles eastward from the city of Nantes, and called by its own name Le Pallet — being, like the nature of my land or of my stock, light of spirit, was likewise of quick wit and apt for the discipline of letters.

Now I had a father somewhat imbued with letters before he was girded with the military belt; whence afterward he embraced letters with so great a love that whatever sons he might have, he arranged to have them instructed in letters before arms. And so indeed it was done. Therefore he, who held me, his firstborn, the dearer, took the more diligent care that I be educated. But I, the more abundantly and easily I advanced in the study of letters, clung to them the more ardently, and was so enticed into love of them that, leaving to my brothers the pomp of military glory together with my inheritance and the prerogative of the firstborn, I utterly renounced the court of Mars, that I might be reared in the bosom of Minerva;

and since I preferred the armor of dialectical reasonings to all the teachings of philosophy, I exchanged these arms for the others, and preferred the conflicts of disputations to the trophies of wars. Accordingly, traversing various provinces in disputation, wherever I had heard that the zeal for this art flourished, I became an emulator of the Peripatetics. At length I came to Paris, where this discipline had already especially been wont to flourish, that is, to William of Champeaux, my teacher, at that time foremost in this mastership both in fact and in reputation; with whom, having lingered a little while, I was at first acceptable to him, but afterward most grievous, when I tried to refute certain of his opinions and often ventured to argue against him, and sometimes seemed the superior in disputing.

This indeed even those who were reckoned foremost among our fellow students endured with the greater indignation, inasmuch as I was held to be junior in age and in length of study. Hence began the beginnings of my calamities, which persist even to now; and the more widely my fame extended, the more was the envy of others kindled against me. At length it came about that, presuming upon my talent beyond the strength of my years, I aspired, a mere youth, to the direction of a school, and looked out for a place in which I might do this — namely, Melun, at that time a notable stronghold and a royal seat.

My aforesaid master sensed this, and, striving to remove our school as far from himself as he could, secretly contrived by what means he could that, before I withdrew from his school, he might hinder the preparation of our school and take away from me the place I had provided. But since he had there as rivals not a few among the powerful of the land, relying upon their aid I became master of my wish, and his manifest envy won for me the assent of very many. From this beginning of our school my name began to be so extended in the art of dialectic that not only the fame of my fellow students, but even that of the master himself, being curtailed, was gradually extinguished.

Hence it came about that, presuming yet more upon myself, I transferred our school with all speed to the stronghold of Corbeil, which is nearer to the city of Paris, so that from there, namely, my importunity might give more frequent assaults of disputation. But after no long interval of time, seized by sickness from immoderate affliction of study, I was compelled to return to my homeland, and for some years, removed from France, I was sought after the more ardently by those whom the doctrine of dialectic stirred. But after a few years had elapsed, when I had by now long since recovered from my sickness, that teacher of mine, William, archdeacon of Paris, having changed his former habit, betook himself to the order of the regular clergy;

with this intention, as they reported, that he might be promoted to a higher grade of prelacy the more religious he was believed to be — as soon afterward happened, he being made bishop of Châlons. Yet this habit of his conversion recalled him neither from the city of Paris nor from his accustomed study of philosophy; but in the very monastery to which he had betaken himself for religion's sake, he straightway, after his usual manner, conducted public schools. Then I returned to him in order to hear rhetoric from him, and, among the other endeavors of our disputations, by the most evident reasonings of arguments I compelled him to change, nay rather to destroy, his ancient opinion concerning universals.

Now he held this opinion concerning the community of universals: that one and the same thing in its whole essence was present at once in each of its individuals, among which indeed there was no diversity in essence but only a variety in the multitude of accidents. But then he so corrected this opinion of his that thereafter he spoke of the same thing not as identical in essence but as the same in being indifferent.

And since on this very point the chief question among dialecticians has always been that of universals—so great a question that even Porphyry, when writing of universals in his Isagoge, did not presume to define it, saying 'For this is a most lofty matter'—when he had corrected, or rather been forced to abandon, this opinion, his teaching fell into such neglect that he was scarcely admitted any longer to the rest of dialectic, as though the whole sum of this art consisted in this very doctrine of universals.

From this our school gained such strength and authority that those who before had most ardently clung to that master of ours, and who most fiercely attacked our teaching, now flocked to our schools; and the very man who had succeeded our master in the chair of the Paris see offered me his own place, so that there, where formerly his own and our master had flourished, he might submit himself with the rest to our teaching. And so, after I had directed the study of dialectic there but a few days, with what envy our master began to waste away, with what grief to seethe, is not easy to express; nor, unable long to endure the heat of the misery he had conceived, did he craftily set about to remove me even then.

And because he had no way to act openly against me, he contrived to take away my school, bringing the basest charges against the man who had granted me his chair, and putting some rival of mine in his office in his stead. Then I returned to Melun and there set up our school as before;

and the more openly his envy persecuted me, the more it added to my authority, according to that line of the poet, 'Envy seeks the heights; the winds buffet the loftiest peaks.' But not long after, when he perceived that almost all discerning men greatly doubted his sincerity in religion and were whispering vehemently about his conversion—seeing that he had by no means withdrawn from the city—he removed himself, together with the little gathering of his brethren and his school, to a certain village far from the city. And at once I returned from Melun to Paris, hoping for peace from him thereafter.

But because, as I have said, he had caused my place to be occupied by my rival, I pitched the camp of our school outside the city on the Mount of Saint Genevieve, as though to lay siege to him who had seized my place. When our master heard this, returning shamelessly at once to the city, he brought back to its former monastery whatever school he could then muster and the little gathering of brethren, as though to relieve from our siege the soldier whom he had abandoned. But while he meant to help him, he greatly harmed him. For that man had before some disciples of a sort, chiefly on account of his lectures on Priscian, in which he was thought to excel; but after the master arrived, he lost them all utterly;

and so he was compelled to give up the direction of his school. And not long after, as though now despairing of worldly glory, he too turned to the monastic life. But what contests of disputation our scholars had after our master's return to the city, both with him and with his disciples, and what fortune the outcome of these wars granted to our side—indeed to me myself in them—the event itself long since taught you also. That word of Ajax I will boldly utter, to speak more temperately: 'If you ask the fortune of this fight, I was not vanquished by him.' And though I should keep silent, the very fact cries out, and the outcome of the matter itself declares it. But while these things were taking place, my dearest mother Lucia compelled me to return to my homeland;

for after the conversion of my father Berengar to the monastic profession, she was minded to do the same. When this was accomplished, I returned to France, chiefly that I might learn theology, since by then our oft-mentioned master William was flourishing in the bishopric of Châlons. In this branch of study his own master, Anselm of Laon, then held the greatest authority by reason of his antiquity. I went therefore to this old man, to whom long usage rather than talent or memory had won his name. If anyone came to him uncertain, to press him on some question, he went away more uncertain still. He was wonderful indeed in the eyes of his hearers, but nothing in the sight of those who questioned him.

He had a wonderful command of words, but their sense was contemptible and void of reason. When he kindled a fire, he filled his house with smoke, not lighting it with brightness. His tree, all in leaves, seemed conspicuous from afar to onlookers, but to those who drew near and examined it more carefully it was found to be fruitless. When therefore I had approached this tree to gather fruit from it, I found it to be that fig tree which the Lord cursed, or that ancient oak to which Lucan compares Pompey, saying, 'It stands, the shadow of a great name, like a lofty oak in a fruitful field,' and so forth. Having discovered this, then, I lay idle in its shade for not many days;

but as I now came to his lectures more and more rarely, certain men who were eminent among his disciples took it gravely, as though I were becoming a despiser of so great a master. Thereupon, secretly stirring him too against me, they made me odious to him by their wicked insinuations. Now it happened one day that, after some collation of opinions, we scholars were jesting among ourselves. There, when a certain one, in a probing spirit, had asked me what I thought of the study of the divine books—I who had as yet studied only in philosophy—I replied:

that the study of this reading was most wholesome, since in it the salvation of the soul is made known, but that I greatly marveled that, for those who are lettered, the very writings of the saints or the glosses do not suffice for understanding their expositions, so that they should need no other teacher. Many who were present, mocking me, asked whether I myself could undertake and presume to do this. I replied that I was ready, if they wished, to make the trial. Then, crying out and mocking me still more, they said: 'Certainly, and we agree. Let then an expositor of some unusual passage of Scripture be sought out and put before you, and let us test what you promise.' And they all agreed upon the most obscure prophecy of Ezekiel.

And so, having taken up an expositor, I at once on the morrow invited them to the lecture. They, giving me counsel against my will, said that one ought not to hasten to so great a matter, but that I, being inexperienced, ought to keep longer watch in searching out and securing the exposition. But, indignant, I replied that it was not my custom to advance by practice but by talent; and I added that either I would utterly cease, or else they should not delay to come to the lecture at my pleasure. And at our first lecture indeed few then were present, since it seemed ridiculous to all that I, still as it were wholly inexperienced in sacred reading, should undertake this so hastily.

Yet to all who were present that lecture proved so pleasing that they extolled it with singular praise, and compelled me, according to this manner of our reading, to set about glossing. When this was heard, those who had not been present began to vie in flocking to the second and third lecture, and all alike were most eager to transcribe, at their very outset, the glosses which I had begun on the first day. Hence the aforesaid old man, stirred by vehement envy and already spurred against me by the persuasions of certain men (as I have mentioned above), began to persecute me in sacred reading no less than our William had before done in philosophy.

Now there were then in this old man's school two who seemed to surpass the rest, namely Alberic of Reims and Lotulf the Lombard; and the more they presumed great things of themselves, the more they were inflamed against me. Chiefly therefore at their instigation, as was afterward discovered, that old man, perturbed, shamelessly forbade me to carry on any further in the place of his teaching the work of glossing which I had begun, alleging this reason: lest, if perchance I should write something erroneous in that work—being as yet untrained in this study—it should be imputed to him. When this had come to the ears of the scholars, they were stirred with the utmost indignation at so manifest a slander of envy, such as had never before befallen anyone.

And the more manifest this was, the more honorable it proved to me, and by persecuting me it made me more glorious. After a few days, therefore, returning to Paris, I held in peace for some years the school long since destined and offered to me, from which I had at first been expelled; and there, at the very outset of the school, I straightway set myself to complete those glosses on Ezekiel which I had begun at Laon. These proved so acceptable to readers that they now believed I had attained no less favor in sacred reading than they had seen in philosophical. Whence, our school being vehemently multiplied by the pursuit of both branches of study, what gains of money and what glory from fame these won for me could not be hidden even from you.

But since prosperity always puffs up fools, and worldly tranquility enervates the vigor of the mind and easily dissolves it through the enticements of the flesh, when I now reckoned myself to be the only philosopher remaining in the world, and feared no further disquiet, I began to loosen the reins of lust—I who before had lived most continently. And the more I had advanced in philosophy or sacred reading, the more, by the uncleanness of my life, I withdrew from the philosophers and divines. For it is well known that philosophers, and still more divines—that is, those intent on the exhortations of sacred reading—shone above all in the grace of continence. Since therefore I was wholly laboring under pride and lust, divine grace, though I was unwilling, conferred upon me the remedy for both maladies.

And first the remedy for lust, then for pride: for lust indeed by depriving me of those things by which I practiced it; for pride, which was born to me chiefly from my knowledge of letters, by humbling me through the burning of that book in which I most gloried, according to that saying of the Apostle, 'Knowledge puffs up.' I wish you now to know both stories of this matter more truly from the thing itself than from hearsay, in the very order in which they came to pass.

Since therefore I always abhorred the uncleanness of harlots, and was kept by the constant assiduity of scholarly study from the approach and frequenting of noble women, and had little knowledge of the conversation of laywomen, a perverse fortune—flattering me, as the saying goes—found a more convenient occasion by which more easily to cast me down from the summit of this loftiness; or rather, by which divine pity might claim for itself, brought low, one most proud and unmindful of the grace he had received. For there was in that very city of Paris a certain young girl named Heloise, the niece of a certain canon called Fulbert, who, the more dearly he loved her, the more diligently had taken pains to have her advanced in every learning of letters that he could.

And though in face she was not the lowest, in abundance of letters she was supreme. For inasmuch as this good of literary knowledge is rarer in women, by so much the more did it commend the girl and had made her the most renowned in the whole realm. Her therefore, having considered all the things that are wont to allure lovers, I judged the more convenient to join to myself in love, and I believed I could do this most easily. For I was then of such great name, and so excelled in the grace of youth and form, that I feared no refusal from whatever woman I might deign to honor with my love. So much the more easily, moreover, did I believe this girl would consent to me, the more I knew her both to have and to love knowledge of letters;

and even in our absence we might present ourselves to each other by written messengers, and write many things more boldly than we could speak, and thus always be engaged in pleasant exchanges. Wholly inflamed therefore with love of this young girl, I sought an occasion by which I might make her familiar with me through domestic and daily intercourse, and more easily draw her to consent.

That this might come to pass, I dealt with the aforesaid uncle of the girl, certain of his friends interceding, that he should receive me into his house, which was very near our school, for whatever price of maintenance he pleased; alleging this reason, namely, that the domestic care of our household greatly hindered our study, and that the excessive expense burdened me too heavily. Now he was a man exceedingly covetous, and toward his niece exceedingly zealous, that she might ever advance further in literary instruction. By these two things I easily obtained his assent and gained what I desired, since he both gaped wholly after money and believed that his niece would derive some benefit from our instruction.

Earnestly entreating me on this matter, he came to meet my wishes beyond what I would have presumed to hope, and furthered my love: namely, by committing her wholly to my teaching, so that, as often as I should be free on returning from school, I should give my labor to teaching her both by day and by night, and should sharply chastise her if I found her negligent. In this matter indeed, marveling vehemently at how great his simplicity was, I was no less astonished within myself than if he had committed a tender lamb to a famished wolf.

For in handing her over to me not only to be taught but even to be sharply chastised, what else was he doing but granting full license to my wishes, and offering an occasion—even if we had been unwilling—so that her whom I could not bend by blandishments I might more easily bend by threats and blows? But two things chiefly recalled him from base suspicion: namely, his love for his niece, and the past reputation of my continence. What more? First we are joined in one house, afterward in heart. Under the pretext of discipline, therefore, we gave ourselves wholly over to love, and the study of reading offered those secret retreats which love desired. With our books open, then, more words of love than of the lesson pressed themselves forward; there were more kisses than sentences;

more often our hands returned to her bosom than to the books, and love turned our eyes upon each other more frequently than reading directed them to the text. And so that we might have less suspicion, love sometimes gave blows—not fury; affection, not anger—blows that surpassed the sweetness of all ointments. What more? No degree of love was left untried by us in our eagerness, and if love could devise anything unwonted, it was added; and the less we had experienced these joys, the more ardently we pressed upon them, and the less did they turn to weariness. And the more this pleasure had occupied me, the less could I give myself to philosophy and devote my labor to the school. It was exceedingly tedious to me to go forth to the school or to linger in it;

and likewise burdensome, since I was keeping nocturnal vigils for love and diurnal ones for study. And reading found me then so negligent and lukewarm that now I produced nothing from talent but all from habit, and was now no more than a reciter of former discoveries; and if I was permitted to discover anything, it was love songs, not the secrets of philosophy. Many of these songs, indeed, are still frequented and sung in many regions, as you yourself know, chiefly by those whom a like life delights. But what sadness, what groans, what laments our scholars took up over this, when they perceived this occupation—nay, perturbation—of my mind, is not easy even to conceive.

For now so manifest a thing could deceive few, and no one, I believe, except the one to whose disgrace it chiefly pertained—namely the girl's uncle himself. To him indeed, when this was sometimes suggested by some, he could not believe it, both, as I mentioned above, on account of the immoderate affection for his niece, and also on account of the known continence of my past life. For we do not easily suspect baseness in those whom we love most, nor can the stain of base suspicion be present in vehement affection. Whence comes also that saying of blessed Jerome in his epistle to Castricianus:

'We are wont to be the last to know the evils of our own house, and to be ignorant of the vices of our children and our spouses, while the neighbors sing of them.' But what is known last does at some time come to be known, and what all perceive is not easily hidden from one; and so, after several months had passed, it befell us also. O how great was the uncle's grief in coming to know this! How great the grief of the lovers themselves at being parted! With what shame was I confounded! With what contrition was I afflicted over the girl's affliction! What surges of sorrow did she sustain over my disgrace! Neither bewailed what had happened to himself, but what had happened to the other; neither lamented his own misfortunes, but the other's.

But this separation of bodies was the greatest joining of souls, and the denied opportunity of each other inflamed love the more, and the now passed suffering of shame made us more shameless; and by so much was the suffering of shame the less, by how much the action seemed the more fitting. There came to pass in us, therefore, what the poetic fable relates of Mars and Venus caught together. Not long after, the girl found that she had conceived, and with the utmost exultation wrote to me at once about this, asking what I myself should resolve to do about it. And so on a certain night, her uncle being absent, as we had agreed, I stealthily carried her off from her uncle's house and sent her without delay to my own homeland;

where she dwelt with my sister so long until she bore a son, whom she named Astrolabe. But her uncle, after her departure, as though turned to madness, with how great grief he seethed, with how great shame he was affected, no one could know save by experiencing it. What, however, he might do against me, what snares he might lay for me, he knew not. If he should slay me, or in any way maim my body, he feared this above all: lest his most beloved niece should be punished for it in my homeland. To seize me and confine me anywhere against my will he was by no means able, especially since I greatly guarded myself in this regard, because I did not doubt that I would the sooner attack him, if he were able or dared.

At length, greatly pitying his immoderate anxiety, and vehemently accusing myself for the deceit which love had wrought, as for a supreme betrayal, I went to the man, entreating and promising whatever amends he himself should appoint for this; asserting that it would seem no marvel to anyone who had ever experienced the force of love, and who held in memory with how great a ruin women have cast down even the greatest men, from the very beginning of the human race. And that I might appease him further than he could hope, I offered to give him satisfaction: namely, by joining to myself in marriage her whom I had corrupted, provided only that it be done in secret, lest I should incur detriment to my reputation.

He assented, and both by his own faith and by that of his kinsmen, and with kisses, he entered into the concord I sought with me—the more easily to betray me. At once I returned to my homeland and brought back my beloved, that I might make her my wife; she, however, by no means approving of this, but utterly dissuading me from it on two accounts: namely, both for the danger and for the disgrace to me. She swore that he could never by any satisfaction be appeased over this matter, as was afterward known. She also asked what glory she would have from me, when she should render me inglorious and humble both herself and me alike; what penalties the world would justly exact from her, if she took from it so great a lamp;

what curses, what losses to the Church, what tears of philosophers this marriage would entail. How unseemly, how lamentable it would be that I, whom nature had created for all, should dedicate myself to one woman and subject myself to so great a baseness. She vehemently detested this marriage, which would be in every way shameful and burdensome to me. She set forth my infamy alike and the difficulties of marriage, to avoid which the Apostle, exhorting us, says: 'Art thou loosed from a wife? Seek not a wife. But if thou take a wife, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Yet such shall have tribulation of the flesh. But I spare you,' and so forth. Likewise:

'I would have you without solicitude,' and so forth. But if I would accept neither the Apostle's counsel nor the exhortations of the saints concerning so great a yoke of marriage, then at least, she said, I should consult the philosophers, and heed what has been written on this matter by them or about them; which indeed even the saints often do diligently, to our reproof. Such is that passage of blessed Jerome in his first book Against Jovinian, where namely he records Theophrastus, who—the intolerable annoyances of marriage and its constant disquiets having for the most part been diligently set forth—had concluded, by most evident reasons, that a wife is not to be taken by a wise man; where Jerome himself concludes those reasons of philosophical exhortation with this ending:

'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.

Thereupon, as one guilty and convicted, I was handed over to the abbot of Saint-Médard, who was present, and dragged to his cloister as to a prison; and at once the council was dissolved. But the abbot and monks of that monastery, supposing that I would henceforth remain with them, received me with the utmost exultation, and, treating me with all diligence, vainly strove to console me. O God, who judgest equity, with what gall of soul, with what bitterness of mind did I then in my madness arraign Thee, in my fury accuse Thee, often repeating that complaint of blessed Antony: "Good Jesus, where wast Thou?" But with how great a grief I seethed, with how great a shame I was confounded, with how great a despair I was distraught, I could then feel, but cannot utter.

I compared with those things which I had once suffered in my body how great were the things I now endured; and I deemed myself the most wretched of all men. Small did I count that earlier betrayal in comparison with this injury, and I lamented far more the loss of my reputation than of my body, since to the former I had come through some fault, whereas to this so manifest violence a sincere intention and the love of our faith had led me — which had compelled me to write.

But when all to whom report had carried this so cruel and ill-considered deed vehemently condemned it, each of those who had taken part, repelling the blame from himself, shifted it onto others, so that even our rivals themselves denied that it had been done by their counsel, and the legate before all detested above all else the envy of the French in this matter. He, at once led by repentance, after some days — when he had for a time, under compulsion, satisfied their envy — brought me out of the other monastery and sent me back to my own, where I found nearly all who were there already, as I mentioned above, hostile to me, since the foulness of their life and their shameless manner of living held me wholly suspect, as one whose grave reproaches they could not endure.

Now after a few months had elapsed, Fortune offered them an occasion by which to contrive my ruin. For by chance, as I was reading one day, a certain opinion of Bede came before me, in which, in his exposition of the Acts of the Apostles, he asserts that Dionysius the Areopagite had been bishop of Corinth rather than of Athens. This seemed greatly contrary to them, who boast that their Dionysius is that Areopagite, whom they profess his own deeds to have shown to have been bishop of Athens. When I had found this, I showed it, as if in jest, to certain of the brothers standing by — namely that testimony of Bede which was being cast up against us.

But they, greatly indignant, said that Bede was a most lying writer, and that they held their own abbot Hilduin to be a truer witness, who for the investigating of this had long traversed Greece, and, the truth of the matter being ascertained, had in the deeds of that man which he wrote utterly removed this doubt. Whereupon, when one of them pressed me with importunate questioning as to what seemed to me in this controversy — that is, between Bede and Hilduin — I replied that the authority of Bede, whose writings all the Churches of the Latins use, seemed to me the more acceptable.

At this they, fiercely inflamed, began to cry out that I had now plainly shown that I had always harassed that monastery of ours, and that now above all I had disparaged the whole realm, by depriving it of that honour in which it gloried uniquely, since I denied that their patron had been the Areopagite. But I replied that I had neither denied this, nor was it much to be cared about whether he was the Areopagite or from elsewhere, provided he had won so great a crown in God's sight. They, however, running at once to the abbot, reported what they had laid to my charge; he gladly heard this, rejoicing to gain some occasion by which to crush me — being one who, the more basely he lived than the rest, the more he feared me.

Then, having convened his council and gathered the brothers, he gravely threatened me, and said that he would send to the king in haste, to take vengeance on me, as one robbing him of the glory and crown of his realm. And he ordered that I be well watched in the meantime, until he should hand me over to the king; but I in vain offered myself to regular discipline, if I had committed any fault.

Then, recoiling violently from their wickedness — for I had now long endured so adverse a fortune, and was utterly in despair, as though the whole world had conspired against me — with the consent of certain brethren who pitied me and the support of some of our disciples, I fled away secretly by night, and withdrew to the land of Count Theobald, close at hand, where I had earlier stayed in a cell. The count himself was somewhat known to me, and he felt deep compassion for the oppressions of mine which he had heard about. There I began to dwell in the castle of Provins, namely in a certain cell of the monks of Troyes, whose prior had earlier been a close friend of mine and had loved me greatly; he, rejoicing greatly at my coming, attended to me with all diligence.

Now it happened one day that our abbot came to that very castle to visit the aforesaid count on certain of his own affairs; learning this, I went to the count together with that prior, asking him to intercede for me with our abbot, that he might release me and grant me leave to live the monastic life wherever a suitable place might present itself to me. The abbot, however, and those who were with him, laid the matter before their council, intending to give the count their answer on this on that very day before they departed. But once the deliberation had begun, it seemed to them that I wished to pass over to another abbey, and that this would be an immense disgrace to their own.

For they reckoned it the greatest glory to themselves that at my conversion I had turned aside to them, as though scorning all other abbeys; and now they said that the gravest reproach would hang over them if, having cast them off, I should pass over to others. Wherefore they would in no way listen either to me or to the count on this matter; rather they at once threatened me that, unless I returned quickly, they would excommunicate me, and they forbade the prior to whom I had fled, in every way, ever again to keep me, unless he were willing to share in the excommunication. Hearing this, both the prior himself and I were greatly distressed. The abbot, however, departing in this obstinacy, died a few days later.

When another had succeeded him, I approached him, together with the bishop of Meaux, that he might grant me what I had sought from his predecessor. When at first he too would not agree to this, afterward, through the intervention of certain friends of ours, I appealed to the king and his council on this matter; and thus I obtained what I wanted. For Stephen, then the king's steward, calling the abbot and his intimates aside, asked them why they wished to keep me against my will, since by it they could easily incur scandal and gain no advantage, seeing that my life and theirs could in no way agree.