A letter from Heloise, abbess of the Paraclete ()

Translated letter:

Problemata Heloissae (The “Questions” of Heloise): Prefatory Letter, Heloise to Abelard. How lavishly the Blessed Jerome praised St. Marcella, enthusiastically approving and especially commending her zeal for study, which was entirely devoted to questions of sacred literature, your wisdom knows better than my simplicity. Demonstrating this approval in his commentary on Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, he recalled in the first book: Indeed, I know how her ardor, her faith, the flame that burns in her breast, have moved her to transcend her sex, to forget about men, to sound the tympanum of the holy books, to pass over the Red Sea of this world. Certainly, when I am in Rome, she never sees me without hastening to ask me a question concerning the Scriptures. Yet she follows the Pythagorean custom and does not accept whatever I may answer as correct; authority unsupported by reason does not convince her. Instead she investigates everything, and weighs it all in her sagacious mind, and so she makes me feel that I have not so much a pupil as a judge. It was because Jerome knew so well Marcella’s great proficiency in her studies that he appointed her as a teacher to instruct other eager students in this subject. Writing to the virgin, Principia, he mentions this among other testimonies: You have there [in Rome], as mentors in the study of Scripture and in holiness of mind, Marcella and Asella; the first guides you through the verdant meadows and diverse flowers of Holy Scripture to him who says in the Canticles ‘I am the flower of the field and the lily of the valley. The other deserves to bear the flower of the Lord with you: ‘Like a lily in the midst of thorns is my dear one in the middle of the maidens.’ What do these statements mean, I ask you, who are dear to many, but dearest of all to me? They are not mere testimonies; they are admonitions, reminding you of your debt to us, which you should not delay in paying. You brought us together as servants of Christ and spiritual daughters in your own oratory and dedicated us to the divine service. You have always exhorted us to listen to the word of God and devote ourselves to sacred studies. In urging us so often to these studies, you have declared that the Bible is a mirror of the soul in which we can discern its beauty or deformity. You would not allow any bride of Christ to be without this mirror, if she would strive to please him to whom she is vowed. You added above, . by way of exhorting us, that reading the Scripture without understanding is like holding a mirror before our eyes without seeing. Our sisters and I have taken these admonitions very much to heart, obeying you in this as much as possible, by devoting ourselves to the love of learning, of which Jerome himself remarked, “Love the knowledge of Scriptures and you will not love the vices of the flesh”. But we find ourselves greatly hampered in our studies by many perplexing questions, and our ignorance of sacred learning makes us love it less, the more unfruitful the task we have undertaken seems to us. So, as pupils to their teacher, daughters to their father, we are sending you some small questions, asking you as supplicants, supplicating as petitioners, that you will not disdain the task of answering them, you above all at whose urging or, rather, at whose command we have embarked on this study. In presenting these questions for you to answer, we are in no sense following the order of Scripture, but, rather, posing them as they came up in the course of our daily studies.   Heloise: Problem I What is the meaning of the Lord’s promise in John’s Gospel regarding the Spirit whom he would send, where he said (16:8-11): And when he (the Spirit) comes, he will convict the world of sin and righteousness and condemnation: sin, because those who hear me do not believe in me; righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will no longer see me; condemnation, because the ruler of this world has been condemned. Abelard’s Solution Through the apostles whom he shall fill with the Spirit, he will convict, as he declared, not merely one part of the world, but all of it, of the sin persisting or retained in human beings: because they have not believed in me. The Spirit will convict the world regarding the righteousness that I have offered by my presence but that men have not accepted; since after I have been here, they will not be able to bring me back when I have gone to the Father and am no longer visible here. The Spirit will convict the world regarding condemnation, meaning condemnation of the sin of righteousness when that which makes people wicked or just may consist in actions more than intentions, and they discern merit not so much in relation to the soul as according to actions. This the Jews were very much inclined to do, regarding no one as damned, whatever he willed, provided that he did not complete it with an act. On this account the Apostle Paul writes to the Romans (9:31): “Israel, which followed the law of righteousness, did not attain to that law.” Why? Because it was pursued not by faith but by works. For example, although the law also forbids concupiscence, the Jews did not consider this sin sufficient for damnation. The Lord now says that this error is to be condemned, by which the prince of this world is judged. He is the true Satan who rules over the carnal life and those who love this world, and he is the author and origin of all sin, not by what he did but by what he willed presumptuously, and he was condemned in an instant and fell most gravely. Heloise: Problem II What is the meaning of this statement in the epistle of James (2:10-11): “Whoever keeps the law as a whole, but falls short in one particular, has become guilty with respect to all of it. He who said ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ also said, ‘You shall not kill. Even if you do not commit adultery, but if you do kill, you have become a transgressor of the Law.’” Abelard’s Solution All precepts of the Law as a whole, not separately, are the Law itself. Therefore, whoever shall keep all of the Law except for a single commandment, becomes guilty of transgressing the entire Law. This means that he did not keep all of the precepts which, taken together (as we have said), are the Law itself. It is as if he were to say openly: “Although no one can fulfill the Law by observing one commandment of it, he can nonetheless become a transgressor of the Law by violating a single one of its precepts.” For this reason, the Apostle, explaining his statement “guilty in respect to all of it,” added “you have become a transgressor of the Law,” from which it can be seen that a precept had been neglected although it was commanded equally with the rest. From the other statement added by the Apostle, “For he who said ‘you shall not commit adultery,’ also said, ‘you shall not kill,’ we conclude that God would by no means have established that one of these is to be neglected, and so the transgressor has become guilty with respect to all of it. When, then, the Apostle declares, “For he who said ‘you shall not commit adultery,’ also said, ‘you shall not kill,’” it is as if he were saying, “So I rightly said that whoever transgresses one commandment is guilty of them all.” This means that the transgressor is condemned because, in not keeping all of the law, he showed contempt for God. For God himself, who gave the Law, ordered this commandment to be followed equally with the others, and this means all of them, not merely one of the whole. As a person becomes a transgressor of the Law by transgressing one of its commandments, he not only becomes guilty of all, but is also condemned because he has not fulfilled all of them. Heloise: Problem III What is the meaning of the Lord’s answer, given often when he was being questioned by others, “you have said it,” or even his responding to many questioners with “you say,” as if he were declaring that they had asserted something they had merely asked about in expressing their doubt. So when Judas asked (Matt. 26:25) “Surely it is not I, Rabbi, who is to betray you?” the Lord answered, “You have said so.” Moreover, when Pilate asked him whether he was the son of God, he answered in the same way. Even when the people asked (John 10:24): “If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly,” or “then you are the son of God?,” Jesus answered, “You say that I am” (John 10:37). Finally, when asked by the governor, that is, Pilate, whether he was king of the Jews, Jesus replied, “You say so” (Matt. 27:11). These answers seem, indeed, to raise a not unmerited doubt. For a person who asks whether this or that is true, in so speaking is not actually saying that this or that is so, but is led by doubt to ask whether either is true. Abelard’s Solution In this genuine problem, the Lord’s answers pose the difficult or even insoluble question whether the Lord’s replies (“you have said” or “you all say” or “you say”) should refer to the words of the preceding questions, so as to assert that these words had been part of them, which is hardly appropriate. Hence in replying to the question of Judas when he asked whether he is the one who would betray him, Jesus answered, “You have said it,” rather than “you are saying it,” In this statement, he has taken notice of the agreement Judas had already made with the Judaeans, promising to betray Jesus to them out of avarice for the money promised. To the high priest who asked whether he was the Christ, the Son of God, Jesus answered, “you have said it,” which is to be understood in this way: that the high priest who at that time denied that Christ, at whom he was looking, was the Son of God, had earlier often confessed, in reading the Law and the Prophets, that he was. To the Jews who asked him whether he was the Messiah, or the Son of God, he replied, “you all say it,” using a verb in the present tense in their case just as in Pilate’s, signifying that the day was already at hand when they would say it. For when they mocked him, saying (Luke 22:64): “Prophesy, O Christ, who is it that struck you?, or (Matt. 27:29) “Hail, King of the Jews!” for whatever reason they detested him for being the Christ, that is, the anointed. Perhaps in this they were imitating the prophecy of Caiaphas, who said (John 18:13) “It is better for you that one man should die than that a whole people should perish.” But in the testimony of the crowd that received him with palm branches, he is also the “son of David,” according to Matthew (21:9), and in him the kingdom of David has come, according to Mark (10:11), and blessed is the king who comes, according to Luke (19:36), and finally according to John (12:13), “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel.” They were by no means deluded in expressing this delusion, as noted above, but are speaking through faith. This is similar to what he says to the Jews, “You say it,” as if to say “There are many among you who not only say this with your lips, but also hold it in your hearts.” Even if those who were asking this may not have said it or believed it, nonetheless when he said, “You say it,” he was referring not to those persons who were present but to the whole Jewish people. It was the same when he spoke to the Jews about Zachariah (Matt. 23:25): “ whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.” When Joshua speaks of Israelites come to spy (Josh. 2:lff), this must be understood to refer not to those who were then people of Judaea, but to the people from whom the spies came. So when Joshua speaks of the sons of Israel as those who were circumcised, it is understood that this is meant to refer not to the same individuals, but to the same people as a whole. We read also (Matt. 27:54) that on the day of the Passion, the centurion and those who were with him were guarding the crucified Lord when he expired, and they saw the veil of the Temple rent, and the earth moving, and the tombs opened, and they said, “Truly, this was the Son of God.” “When all of the people who had gathered for this spectacle saw what had happened, they returned home beating their breasts.” (Luke 23:48). This, as we said, is similar to his answer to the Jews who asked if he was the Son of God. He replied, “You are saying it,” which means “the day is already here, or the time at hand, when you should confess this of me.” He replied in the same way to Pilate’s question, whether he was the King of the Jews, with the statement, “you are saying it,” rather than “you have said it.” The Gentile (Pilate) was ignorant of the prophesies and had not read those words in which Christ had been promised, and his kingdom prophesied, in the words (Luke 1:33): “His kingdom shall have no end,” or (Matt. 21:5) “Say to daughter Sion: behold your King has come.” Yet on that day Pilate frequently declared in words, and in the very title written on the Cross, recalled what he said to the Jews (John 18:39) “Do you wish me to release to you the King of the Jews?,” and again (19:15), “Shall I crucify your king?” Even when he asked the Lord (18:33-35), “Are you the king of the Jews?” and Christ answered with the question, “Do you say this on your own or have others told you about me?,” Pilate declared, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priest handed you over to me.” See how often and how openly Pilate declares him King of the Jews, and calls the Jewish people his nation! When the Lord says, “Do you say this on your own, or have others told you about me?” it is as if he had said: “Do you seek this for yourself, so that you may know the Truth, or through the deceit of the Jews, as if you were one of them, that you might take this opportunity to kill me?” Finally, what Pilate had said in words, he confirmed by writing in three languages, so that it could be read by all who came to Jerusalem and that Christ might be understood to be the true King of the Jews. For it read (John 19:19): “Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews.” By adding “the Nazarene,” he carefully distinguished this Jesus from others who, among the ancient people, had been designated with this name, not properly but by reference to some quality, such as Joshua, Jesus the priest, or Jesus ben Sirach. The high priests of the Jews, however, were highly indignant at the honor of this inscription, which suggested that they had crucified their own king, to their condemnation, and they said to Pilate (John l9:21), “Do not write ‘the King of the Jews,’ but that he said, ‘I am the King of the Jews.” But as though Pilate understood what had been prophesied (Psalms 56:1; 58:1; 75:1): “Do not destroy, David, in the heading of the inscription,” as addressed to himself, he answered (John 19:22): “What I have written, I have written.” It was as if he had said: “I foresaw what was to be written, I signed without any retraction or correction,” as if this had been written first in his mind and only afterwards displayed in letters. This repetition of words, “What I have written, I have written,” signifies the insistence or immutability of the fact, as in the saying (Psalm 126:6), “They went forth, they went forth.” Heloise: Problem IV How are we to understand what the Lord replied to the Jews who were seeking signs concerning the time of his burial (Matt. 12:40): “Just as Jonah was in the whale’s belly three days and three nights, so will the son of man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights”? It is agreed that the Lord was taken down from the Cross and buried on Friday, and lay in the tomb on Saturday, and on Saturday night, in the last darkness of Sunday morning, rose again. Therefore it is certain that for one whole night preceding the Saturday, and for one whole day of Saturday itself he was in the tomb, and in commenting on the Letter to the Galatians, Jerome asserted that he rose again in the last hour of the night.

Abelard’s Solution When the Lord says “three days and three nights,” this is not to be understood as meaning that he would be there through three whole days and nights, but that he would lie buried for a period of time bounded by three days along with their nights. So it is right when he says “three days and three nights” to add “just like Jonah,” whom the fish vomited up onto dry land on the third day, and so was in the belly of the whale for only one whole night and one whole day. If you take the time encompassing three days with their nights, from the beginning of the night of the Preparation day [“Good Friday”] until the end of Sunday, you will find that the Lord lay in his tomb during that space of time, though not through that whole time, three days and three nights. It is not necessary for something happening within a certain time to take place through all of that time. Perhaps also when the text says “the heart of the earth,” it speaks not so much about the burial [on the very inscription on the Cross, it seems that he was accepted as Lord, as Matthew recalls he told the Jews] but rather about the hearts of human beings, during at least that time of desperation about Christ when the disciples and even his own mother were deeply shaken in their faith. For this reason Augustine remarks in a chapter of his Questions on the Old and New Law: “Even Mary, through whom the mystery of our Savior’s incarnation was accomplished, had her doubts at the Lord’s death, and they came to be resolved at the Lord’s Resurrection.” For all were doubtful about the death, and because all ambiguity was cut away at the Lord’s Resurrection, she was said to be pierced as by a sword. “The heart of the earth” was still like an earthly and fleshly heart, not yet made spiritual by the firmness of faith or the ardor of charity, which is to say, a “human heart,” as long as human beings in that time considered Christ more flesh or man than God and more earthly than heavenly. So to the Jews, who were seeking a sign of power by which they could recognize him as God, he replied that, instead, he would give them the sign of Jonah, which means that they should be able to recognize the weakness in him, just as Jonah was thought to have been cast into the sea rather by injustice rather than because of religion, and this was attributed to him as his own fault, so that he was even thought deserving of condemnation.

Heloise: Problem V Concerning the appearances of the risen Lord to his women followers, the evangelists have left us in the greatest doubt. For Mark and John report (Mark 15:lff.; John 20:lff.) that he appeared first to Mary Magdalen, who came in the early morning, when it was still dark, and found the stone rolled away. Later, as Mark says, after she had reported this to Peter and John, and they had run to the tomb and then gone away, she saw two angels and then Jesus, who she thought was a gardener. This first appearance is said to have been made to her alone. But Matthew reports (27:lff.) that she came to the tomb with another Mary and then, after the earth was shaken, the angel descended and rolled back the stone, and announced that the Lord had risen, and Jesus appeared to these two women, who clung to his feet. Mark, however, tells us (l6:lff.) that Mary Magdalen and Mary the mother of James and Salome came very early in the morning when the sun was just rising, asking one another which of them would roll back the stone from the entrance to the tomb. When they looked and saw that it had been rolled away, they realized from the angel’s words to them and the empty sepulchre that the Lord had risen. Coming out of the tomb, they fled trembling, and out of fear told no one at all about what had happened. To this is at once added (9:11): “When he had risen on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalen; she went and told his companions and they did not believe her.” But Luke reports (24:lff.) that when Mary Magdalen and Johanna and Mary the mother of James, and those who were with them, came to the tomb very early in the morning and found the stone rolled away, they went in and did not find the body of Jesus. They announced this to the disciples, who did not believe them. Comparing the statements of the evangelists, therefore, we ask first, how, according to John, Mary Magdalen came to the tomb early in the morning while it was still dark, and saw the stone rolled away, and afterwards, as Mark says (16:3), Mary Magdalen and Mary the mother of James and Salome came to the tomb when the sun had just risen, saying to one another: “Who has moved the stone for us?” If Mary Magdalen had already seen the stone moved when it was still dark, how now, when the sun had risen, could she ask with the others about the moving of the stone, which she had earlier seen moved away? Secondly, it seems that we must ask how, according to Mark, the women are said to have told no one about the resurrection because they were afraid, while the other evangelists assert the contrary? Finally, John says that Mary Magdalen, unaccompanied by anyone, before she had seen Jesus, announced to Peter and John that he had been removed from the tomb, and they had run there at once. Luke, however, reports that the same Mary Magdalen, and many other women with her, after learning that the Lord had risen, announced this to the disciples, and then Peter had run to the tomb.

Abelard’s Solution Only John recalls Mary Magdalen and no other women at the Resurrection of the Lord, not because she alone was present at the events that took place, but because he commends her devotion as much greater than that of the others and because her exhortation and example greatly encouraged the other women. For just as she had been more fervent in love than the others and more deeply moved by the joy of the Resurrection, she came to the tomb first and fearlessly while it was still night, and then returned for them, inquiring intently whether anyone was by now convinced of the Lord’s Resurrection. When she had found no one, she returned with others to the tomb, when the sun had already risen, and then the rolling away of the stone took place, although John had seemed to indicate that the rolling-away had already taken place and was seen by Mary earlier, before the other women, because she was more concerned than they. Mary Magdalen found the stone rolled away, and believing that the Lord had been taken away, returned quickly and reported this to Peter and John. Then, returning with them to the tomb, after their departure from it, she stood outside the tomb weeping, while the others who were present did not dare to approach it, and she was the one worthy to see first the angels and then the Lord, and after that, the other Mary who, according to Matthew, had accompanied her earlier, came near. Fearful by now of the guards who were present, they were both consoled, while the guards were terrified, and struck as if dead by the earthquake and the appearance of the angel seated upon the stone that had been rolled away. When these two went forth to tell the disciples what the angel had decreed, Jesus appeared to them together, appearing for the second time. Other women, however, who had been more timid and weak in faith were not worthy to see the Lord at that time, but when the angels were speaking, had heard that he had risen again. So while not all of them were informed of this in the same way, they were all silent at first and delayed announcing this to the disciples. Still frightened and overwhelmed by the angelic vision, they feared that they would not be believed, until with many of them gathered together, they would be able to speak more confidently. Then afterward, as Luke recalls, the Magdalen herself, and Johanna and Mary the mother of James and the remaining women who were with them, told these things to the disciples. Firmer in faith than those who did not believe them, Peter ran again to the tomb and when he saw neither the angels nor the Lord, returned greatly puzzled. Peter was stunned because the angels and the Lord appeared to the women rather than to him or to the disciples. We believe that the Lord then appeared to him, so that he would not persist in doubt and despair, as Luke reports the apostles having said that “the Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon.” When Matthew and Luke say “on the evening of the Sabbath” (Matt.28:1; Luke 24:1), they understand this to be the end of the following night even until the first light of Sunday. This evening star shines on the first day of the week when it appears in the light of the following day. It says “as the first day of the week was dawning,” using the female gender, signifying that, as we said, one perceives night as such in the evening, but which “was dawning,” as if to say that the night was then touching the light. Whether it was the evening of the night or the evening of day, it may be called the last hour of either; evening really encompasses the whole time of the succeeding night.   Heloise: Problem VI Why is it that when the Lord was offering and commending the sacrament of his Body and Blood to the disciples, he did not say of the Body, “This is my Body of the New Covenant” (Matt.26:26-28), when he would say of the Blood, “This is my Blood of the New Covenant,” as if he were recommending the Blood more than the Body? Also, what is the meaning of these words (26:29): “From now on I shall not drink this fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it with you newly in my Father’s Kingdom?”

Abelard’s Solution The Body of Christ received in the sacrament is the humanity that he received when he was born of the Virgin, as it is written (John 1:24): “The Word became flesh.” His Blood, given in the cup, is his Passion, in which all of us who are his members ought to share. So it is written (I Pet. 2:21) “Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his footsteps.” Gregory [the Great] declared that “it was useless for anyone to be born unless to be redeemed, and our redemption was to be consummated in his Passion.” The Lord himself proclaimed this as he was dying, saying (John 19:30): “It is finished.” It is fitting that the Blood shed should be preferred, that is, his Passion preferred to his birth. The Blood was also more fittingly described as the “New Covenant” than the Body, thus confirming the preaching of the Gospel, for as the Apostle says (Heb. 9:17): “A will takes effect only at death.” What is the Gospel but a covenant of love, as the Law was a covenant of fear? So the Apostle said to converted Jews (Rom. 8:15): “Do not fall back into fear.” Again he said (I Tim. 1:5): “The aim of this teaching is love from a pure heart.” And the Truth said of himself (Luke 12:49): “I have come to set the earth on fire and how I wish it were already blazing.” So the Lord’s Passion confirmed supremely this covenant of love when, as he was dying for us, he demonstrated to us that love whose greatness nothing could exceed. For this reason, he himself said (John 15:13): “No one has greater love than this, to lay down his life for his friends.” So saying, he confirmed this covenant that he persisted in teaching, as he preached his Gospel even unto death, and showed us by dying what he could not show in being born, just as one who composes a will of any kind for his heirs, when he is dying, will of any kind for his heirs, when he has persevered in his first intentions, as he is dying, he confirms them in his will, barely deleting, correcting little, he then upholds it in every way. For this reason, as I have said, the Blood of the Lord was to be called “of the New Covenant” rather than his Body. As for his saying (Matt. 26:29): “From now on I shall not drink this fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it with you new in my Father’s kingdom,” I understand it in this way. It is as if he had said that the Sacrament of Christ is then received as something new, since it renews those coming forward and receiving it full of faith, and it changes the “old man” whom they had imitated through sin into a “new man” whom they are prepared to follow in obedience even unto death. The disciples of those times were hardly persons of the deepest faith; they were, in the main, weak in faith at this time, and not yet moved into the kingdom in such a way that God might rule through them. They adhered to God with a faith still incomplete and were barely subject to his dominion. Therefore they received the sacrament itself as something old rather than as something new, and as still remaining outside the Kingdom of God, because constancy of faith had not yet so confirmed them in God that by then being made new in their perception of it, they would deserve being confirmed in its newness after the Resurrection. Then Christ would drink of this fruit of the vine with them, that is, of his Blood, which is “their vine like a palm grove,” when as they share worthily in the sacrament of his Passion, he shall slake there the thirst they have within them. For whoever hungers and thirsts for the salvation of mankind is then refreshed by it while rejoicing in its fulfillment. Perhaps for this reason the sacrament of the Lord’s Passion appeared as “something old” before the Resurrection, and afterward as “something new,” because while he still bore a body capable of suffering and corruption and mortality, in this being like the “old” man, before he would rise from this penal existence and arrive at the newness of the future. So while he was mortal, and gave himself in the sacrament as he then was, in a certain way the sacrifice was “old” and not “new” in comparison with what we receive in a humanity already immortal and incorruptible. Luke rightly says (22:28): “This cup is the New Covenant of my Blood,” that is, the pact or the promise God made to you of your redemption in his Passion. Where we have the word “covenant” in Hebrew, it is considered a pact. For whoever accepts the Law of the Lord enters into a certain pact with him, or rather he with them, since they promise obedience in the Law, while he promises its reward.

Heloise: Problem VII What is the meaning of Luke’s saying that the Lord gave two cups to his disciples, or the same one twice? For this seems to be written with that meaning (22:14-20): When the hour came, he took his place at table with the apostles; he said to them, ‘I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover (meal) with you before I suffer, for I tell you, I shall not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the Kingdom of God.’ Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and said, ‘Take this and share it among yourselves, for I tell you that from this time on I shall not drink the fruit of the vine until the coming of God’s Kingdom.’ Then he took the bread, said the blessing, broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which will be given for you: do this in memory of me.’ And likewise he took the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This is the new covenant in my Blood, which will be shed for you.’”

Abelard’s Solution The Passover that he had sent his disciples to prepare according to the Law was the old Passover, the eating a lamb or a goat’s kid along with bitter herbs. This is the Passover that he said he desired to eat with his disciples before he suffered because it was before the Passion and not afterward that he wished to celebrate with symbols the old Passover that must give way to the new. The Lord himself said this directly when he said of the new sacrament as such, “Do this in memory of me,” as if already ending the old and beginning the new from then on. When he said: “This is my Body, which will be given for you,” he added immediately, “Do this in memory of me,” as if already ending the old and beginning the new from then on. This is why the Apostle adds (I Cor. 11:24): “for as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.” Therefore, the celebration of the Mass is the commemoration of the Lord’s Passion, which each of the faithful should approach with as much compassionate devotion as if he were looking upon the one crucified for him. In order, then, that this memorial of the Lord’s Passion might cling to our minds and always set our love of him on fire, this sacrifice of his should be offered daily on his altar. “Do this,” he said, “this is truly my body, not yet given for you but being given in memory of my great love, so that you might be able to share in my Passion.” He wished to give the same cup twice, so that in this way he might show that we take his cup not only in receiving the sacrament, but also in imitation of the Passion. So the Psalmist says (Psalm 15:13): “I will take the cup of salvation,” that is, of Jesus, imitating him also by virtue of his Passion. The power to withstand death belongs not to our human weakness, but rather to the strength that God has lent us. Therefore he himself must be invoked from whom we hope for this great strength in which we should seek not so much our good as his glory, which is signified by his name. Just as whatever does not seem worthy by name is called ignominious, on the other hand, whatever is of glorious name is worthy and famous. Therefore we invoke the name of God when we dedicate to his glory what we do, so that he might be more glorified in us, rather than we in him, since we receive strength from him in these matters, when we are weak in ourselves concerning them. This is why the Apostle also says (I Cor. 1:31): “Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord,” which means that anyone who recognizes in himself any virtue or achievement should seek to honor God within and not himself. He should ascribe it not to his own virtue but to divine grace, recognizing it as coming not from himself, but from God. What he said to the sons of Zebedee concerns this chalice that we receive in imitation of Christ’s Passion (Matt.: 20-22): “Can you drink the cup that I shall drink?” meaning “Are you sure that you can follow me in imitating the Passion?” Of this first chalice, then, and not of the second, he rightly said to his disciples: “Take this and share it among yourselves.” For we share among ourselves, receiving Christ’s chalice from him, when we imitate him in many kinds of suffering. There is no division in truly receiving the sacrament, because there is one offering by the head himself, and not by the members, an offering put together equally by good and bad priests by virtue of the divine words. “Take,” he says, “this chalice from me to share later among yourselves, for from this time onward, I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine,” that is, “I shall not celebrate this offering of my Passion, until the Kingdom of God comes.” This means the kingdom of heavenly life, in which the Lord alone reigns, and not sin, “until it is made manifest to the faithful through my Passion.” It was right that he set out the chalice of imitation before the chalice of the Sacrament because only those who are prepared to imitate his Passion and take up his Cross are worthy of a place at the Lord’s table. For it is written (Eccl. 31:12): “You have been seated at a great table; know that it is because you should prepare such things yourself.” Because the Lord is passing on the New Covenant, not the Old, he takes bread as well as the chalice and gives thanks to show that what had been prefigured in the Old Testament was now fulfilled, and that God must be glorified in Truth rather than its shadows. But, more than that, he said that he wished to celebrate the old Passover as well with his disciples, so that they would not receive the new sacraments from the old Passover and esteem the old rites as those that God had given them. For even the old rites formerly pleased greatly those who themselves belonged to the old order, so that the Lord should greatly desire to celebrate rites that he saw were greatly pleasing to them, just as in that desire of his he would have intended what he saw greatly suited their blameworthy antiquity. Regarding this, in order to inform or warn them of change to what was new, he at once added the New Covenant to the Old, so that in a certain way the Old would cross over into the New. As they were putting aside the Old, they would cross over from the kingdom of sin to the Kingdom of God, and they would no longer follow the letter, but the spiritual meaning of the old Passover. Thus they would be brought from the “oldness” of the letter to the “newness” of the Spirit. This is the meaning of Christ’s consuming the old Passover with them even now and changing it into the new. Meanwhile, we perceive in the old what is symbolized, and what we believe is fulfilled in the new. For this reason, immediately after the Resurrection, he himself began with Moses, and interpreting all of the Scriptures, converted the old rite into the new, while, through this understanding, he applied the old to the new, and rounding it off like a meter in verse, changed the water of the Law into the Wine of the Gospel. He even consumes the old Passover with us as if it were already changed into the new, because in the new we receive and enjoy him as we receive it, just as in the old, we were instructed how to receive it mystically in the eating of the lamb and the young goat and in others things established for it. Christ consumed the old Passover, not the new, with the disciples, while he is the New Passover himself, as the Apostle Paul declares (I Cor. 5:7) “Our paschal Lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed.” He himself became our sacrificial offering, and he it is whom we receive daily in the Sacrament. In this way, then, he rightly celebrated the old Passover with the disciples, while he himself was still in the “old” humanity along with the disciples because of the body’s mortality and because he shared the same customs with them. On the other hand, like a new person together with new persons, he now receives the new fruit of the vine, while he himself through immortality, and they by putting aside the old humanity in various ways, enjoy the newness of the true Sacrifice, and he drinks with them, as a head does with its members. The old Passover had no chalice, “for the Law brought nothing to perfection” (Heb. 7:19) and so in its sacrifice there should not be perfect refreshment.

Heloise: Problem VIII There is no doubt that the Lord, in behalf of the adulteress who was to be set free, replied to the Jews (John 8:7): “Let him among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her,” and so rescued her. Now since he did not permit her to be stoned except by someone without sin, he would seem to forbid anyone from using the rod of punishment, since no one is without sin, not even an infant having a single day of life upon the earth (Cf. Job 14:1; Septuagint).

Abelard’s Solution The Lord Jesus, who alone among the Jews was without sin, here stones the adulteress, yet saves the woman since he mercifully spares the penitent the pain of punishment. When he said, “Let the one who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her,” it is as if he said, “Leave the sinful one to the only One among you who is without sin.” He himself first aims a stone at the sinful woman when he inspires her penitence, and by way of satisfaction, she soon suffers remorse and tames the flesh so it may battle no more against the spirit. And thus made dead to the world, she might from that time onward live for God and sin might be rooted out while nature is preserved. The Lord also went on to say (Rom. 12:19): “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” Therefore we save the sinner for God, when he operates more in us than we in him. So it is said to mankind, not to God (Exod. 20:13): “Thou shall not kill. Thus God, who is bound by no commandment, forbids us to do what he must evidently do. “It is I,” he says (Deut. 32:39), “who kills and I who give life.” He slays through us and spares through us, when he uses us as agents, letting us by virtue of his commandments kill the wicked or spare the innocent, so that these acts are to be imputed to him rather than to us. For when any powerful person accomplishes something by means of a hired agent, it is said to be not so much the servant’s work as that of his employer, that is, such deeds belong not to those who performed these actions, but rather to the person who acted through them. So human beings are forbidden to kill, but God acting through them is not. Thus human beings kill, and not God through them, when the killing is the work of human evil, not performed by divine command. When the killing is done for its own sake rather than the Law’s, when the killing results from our own malice rather than divine justice, the sword is taken not to establish justice, or to avenge iniquity, but to express the swordsman’s iniquity. Those who take the sword for their own purposes rather than receiving it from those in authority, those who presume to use the sword unjustly, shall justly “perish by the sword.” But when a soldier uses against a criminal the sword entrusted to him by the king, it is the king who acts through his agent, his hired servant, in this case. So Augustine says in the first book of the City of God: Thou shalt not kill, except for those whom God orders to be killed, either by established law or by an order given to someone at a particular moment. For the person who serves a commander is not responsible for the killing any more than the sword is not simply an aid to the killer. Similarly, Augustine says in his Questions on Exodus: “The Israelites did not commit robbery in despoiling the Egyptians, but rather acted on God’s command, just as a minister of justice kills a person whom the law orders to be killed.” So it is homicide when done willfully, even if the one killed knows that he should be executed by a magistrate. Again in Questions on Leviticus, Augustine says: “When this man is killed, the law kills him, not you.” His statements teach us that we do not rightly call homicide or theft what we commit through obedience, when we do rightly what fulfills God’s command. Whatever seems to belong to the Lord’s dominion shall be said to be God’s rather than man’s. Everyone possesses things not as their owner but as their administrator, for as long as the Lord allows, and no one who removes them at the Lord’s command is an unjust thief. Possessions belong to the person who entrusts them to us, for as long as he wishes and, should he wish, they are given to others to administer, who are the less worthy to administer them, the more they fail to acknowledge the one by whom they were entrusted with this task. Insofar as the Egyptians were infidels, they deserved to lose rather than to keep these possessions.

Heloise: Problem IX As Matthew tells us (8:2), the Lord healed a leper by his touch, and sent him for priestly examination, and ordered him to make the offering the Lord demanded in such cases. This statement poses the question of the logic by which in this case the Lord seems to contradict the Law, and at the same time to comply with it. For he touches the leper, which the Law forbids, and sends him to the priest to be cleansed and offer sacrifice, as the Law commands.

Abelard’s Solution As the Lord himself said (16:16): “The Law and the Prophets lasted until John,” that is, until the time of grace the precepts of both Law and Prophets had to be obeyed to the letter. So in no way did the Lord contradict the Law that he was not now bound to obey by God’s command, especially since the Law itself “was promulgated,” as the Apostle says (Gal. 3:l9), “by the direction of a mediator, and established by his power.” Thus he who had instituted it at a certain time could make it void by his own will when it was fitting that perfect charity should show mercy to everyone in the time of grace, and should invite by example those of us who are suited to a life of piety. Nor does the Lord abhor anything about mankind except for sin. Therefore he acted in every way mercifully toward the leper both when he did not disdain touching him, despite the affliction of his body, and when he ordered the leper to perform that act without which he could not be received once more into human society. For this reason, the leper examined by the priest is commended by his judgment and by sacrifice according to the Law.

Heloise: Problem X What is the meaning of that saying in Luke’s Gospel in which Abraham declares to the rich man who was damned (16:26): “Moreover, in every way there is fixed between us and you a great chaos to prevent anyone from crossing who might wish to go from our side to yours or from your side to ours?” How could anyone be so blind as to wish to leave such refreshing tranquillity, and how could anyone foolishly attempt to offer some help to those whom they see utterly excluded from God’s mercy?

Abelard’s Solution Abraham, in whose bosom Lazarus lay, represents God, who receives his faithful from the miseries of this life into the refreshment of a future life that is still hidden from us. In this case, the damned soul speaks as a supplicant when he asks the Lord to show him mercy. Abraham answers him in keeping with the form of his request, and tries to make him understand how foolishly he had wished for what could never happen. He makes him understand by this addition to his answer: “Moreover, in all respects, between us and you a great chaos is fixed, etc.” “In all respects”, that is, in both these statements, he is saying that a great chaos is fixed between the consolation of the just and the punishment of the wicked, and the divine justice has established this obstacle to prevent anyone from crossing from our side to yours. To cross here from the refreshment of the just to the sufferings of the wicked, we understand as meaning also to intervene in behalf of the damned, and to bring them some of the well-being of the just, or to bring them from there to here. This is what the faithful do every day in this life when by their prayers and works of mercy they seek to intervene in behalf of those they believe are suffering the pains of purgatory, when in fact they are damned. So we understand that those who would show such compassion for the damned are not already enjoying heavenly bliss, but still living, who are called the faithful. Abraham did not say that some of those here wish to cross over to you; he simply said, “Those who wished,” whether they are still alive or now dead. We take this statement as referring to the living who are said to have crossed symbolically from the bliss of the just to the place where the damned are punished, or from there to here. Coming from here to there is like having compassion for those who are damned, so as to share this blessedness with them by means of our own good works, or to lead them from there to here, so this would seem to be the same sentence in different words.

Heloise: Problem XI What is the meaning of the Lord’s saying, according to the same evangelist (Luke 15:7): “I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who do not need to repent?” For it is much better and more perfect to avoid sin than to make amends for the one sin committed and doing many things well pleases God more than doing only one. What does it mean, then, if God approves the penitence of a single sinner more than the perseverance of many righteous people?   Abelard’s Solution The more one suffers for a sin, the greater is the rejoicing over its forgiveness, and the sinner’s grief has seemed more overwhelming when fitting reparation is less to be hoped for. We are made happier by what is more serious in its result, and the greater our solicitude for the sinner, the greater is our joy in its outcome. We are given less joy by the just, whom we trust to persevere in the good, and about whom we are less concerned because we are more certain, than by the conversion of the sinner because it seemed more difficult. In truth, his conversion is not worth more than their perseverance, but we rejoice more in an event that was the source of greater concern on our part. So we understand that there will be joy in heaven to mean that there will be greater rejoicing in the present church of the faithful which our Lord frequently calls the kingdom of God.

Heloise: Problem XII A question that is by no means unimportant is posed by what we read in Matthew about the laborers sent into the vineyard, the first among them seeming to envy the last, and to complain to the vineyard-master in such a way as to deserve the following reply (Matt. 20:15) “Are you envious because I am generous?” In the future life what each of the blessed receives will be sufficient, and no one will seek to have more than he is given. So great will be the love (charity) of everyone there that each will desire the good of another as his own. Nor can anyone oppose the Lord’s will, to look upon another with malicious envy, since envy greatly afflicts and torments those whom it possesses. So the poet (Horace) has said: “The Sicilian’s envy is no greater than the tyrant’s.” And he also says: “He who envies another diminishes his own wealth.”

Abelard’s Solution We know that in parables it is not so much the truth of something that is expressed, as it is a kind of likeness to something else, and that parables often treat the likeness of an historical truth as an actual fact. The parable of Dives and Lazarus is thought to refer to the actions of two persons or, more often, of many persons, because the soul of one is saved, while that of another is damned. Yet it can hardly be taken literally when Dives says to Abraham (Luke 16:24): “Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue.” For souls do not have fingers or tongues of their own, but bodies do. Thus what is said of Dives and Lazarus does not represent historical truth literally, but pertains to a likeness drawn from some part of the truth. So in this place (the vineyard), where certain people are said to have complained and murmured, comparing themselves to others, this protest is to be interpreted not as expressing indignation, but rather amazement. For those who murmur are amazed by the occurrence of something they had not expected. This means that “murmuring” now stands for the admiration of the multitude of the faithful who will see themselves comparing their rewards. Their attitude hardly represents that of the envious, who for that reason become aroused against others, because the first workers in the vineyard simply admire a fact more or less illogical, which they had not expected. That is why, as if in saying, “Are you envious because I am generous?,” he meant, “when you see the good I do, should you be moved by iniquity to indignation, in worldly fashion?” He says, “that would hardly be appropriate.” But the Lord says this to everyone, to insist that what he does should not make them indignant, but rather make them praise God.

Heloise: Problem XIII This question about the unforgivable sin troubles us as it does many others. How can someone sin against the Son of God and not against the Holy Spirit, since the one can hardly be offended without the other? An offense against one necessarily affects both. Against whom has an offense been committed that can hardly be forgiven the offender?

Abelard’s Solution Before we propose a solution, as far as this is possible, we must proceed to assemble from the several evangelists their statements on this subject, and then base our premises on their words, in order to reach a solution more easily. So, as Matthew says (12:27): When the Lord had cured someone of demons and the envious Pharisees were saying that this was done by an unclean spirit and not by the Holy Spirit, the Lord said, ‘If I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your people drive them out? But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you.’ Further on he says (12:31): Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven mankind, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come. On the other hand, Matthew tells us (3:28-29): “Amen, I say to you all sins and all blasphemies that people utter will be forgiven them. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an everlasting sin. For they had said, ‘He has an unclean spirit.’” But Luke writes (12:8-10) that, according to the Lord, “Everyone who acknowledges me before others, the Son of Man will acknowledge before the angels of God. Everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.” With these matters set before us, first we must distinguish what may be the sin of blasphemy against the Son of Man, and what is that against the Holy Spirit. I consider that a person commits the sin of blasphemy against the Son of Man when he diminishes Christ, denying that he is God, not so much through malice as through an error caused by seeing in him the nature that he took on because of our infirmity. He indicates this when he says “Son of Man” rather than “Son of God,” to emphasize that because of the human infirmity he assumed in being born of his mother, it is not believed that God’s power is in him. This sin, because it results from invincible ignorance, seems very much to be excused, since no human reason can perceive, except by the inspiration of God, how God could become man. So Christ himself also prophesies (John 6:44) “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me brings him,” because it does not belong to human reason to perceive in Christ what can happen only by divine inspiration. But to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit means knowingly, through envy, to deny the goodness of God, who is to be understood as the Holy Spirit, that the benefits undoubtedly coming from the Holy Spirit, that is, through the grace of divine goodness, are attributed through envy to an evil spirit, as the Pharisees did when they tried to draw away from Christ the crowd who believed in the miracles they had seen. If we really consider their sin, it will seem worse than that by which the Devil fell. For even if the Pharisees did not believe that Christ was God, they could not have failed to acknowledge how righteous a man he was in his life and works, or that the works he performed had been done through the Holy Spirit. When, then, contrary to their own conscience, in a malign spirit, they spoke against what they did not doubt had taken place through the Holy Spirit, they knowingly lied in asserting that the Holy Spirit was an evil spirit. So much the more do they seem to have presumed in their lie than the Devil did in his pride. Although the Devil desired to be like God and obtain his power for himself, at least he is not to be regarded as going so far as this, that he dared to commit such blasphemy, or to uphold the lie that God is evil. For this reason their blasphemy is not less than their pride, but seems even more despicable, and so to deserve being denied all forgiveness. We hardly mean to say that no penance of theirs, should they perform it, would not obtain forgiveness. From the Lord’s own words, however, we believe that such people as these so offend the spirit of God that in their obstinate malice they are inwardly excluded from grace. Luke, as we have seen, designates by the finger of God his manifest grace that reveals itself in Christ, when the Lord himself says (11:20): “But if it is by the finger of God that I drive out demons.” The right hand or arm of the Son of God may be said to be his; on this hand the finger manifests some operation of the Holy Spirit. We use the finger often in pointing to material things, and the spirit of God is called his finger when it clearly exhibits his grace through some benefit accomplished. So this is not to be regarded as anything but the work of God, even though some should slander it as the Pharisees did. This is the sin that remains unforgiven, the sin against the Holy Spirit through whom comes the remission of sins. But consider this saying (Matt. 12:31): “Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven” as meaning that, as has been said, nothing is to be damned that diminished the honor of Christ only out of error and not out of malice. This is true because this invincible ignorance is like that which was shown by those for whom the Lord and Stephen prayed during their suffering. It is fitting according to both faith and reason that we should consider those not to be damned who recognize God as creator and rewarder of all by the natural law and who cling to him with such zeal that they strive never to offend him by that consent which is properly called sin. They strive also to be shown by God what it is necessary to learn for salvation, either through inspiration or through some direction by which God may give instruction concerning these matters. We read (Acts 2) that this happened to Cornelius concerning faith in Christ and the reception of baptism. He seems to suggest this directly when he said (I John 3:21): “If our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence in God.” When the Lord says (John 15:13): “No one has greater love than this, to lay down his life for his friends, he seems hardly to despair of those who, although they did not know Christ, endured death for God out of zeal for the Law. It would be easy for God to inspire such as these with what should be believed about Christ before the soul should leave the body, lest it should pass unbelieving from this life.

Heloise: Problem XIV What does it mean when the Lord, in describing the minds of the faithful, and noting the goodness (virtues) by which they may deserve blessedness, calls them “blessed” in a number of the ways in which they are blessed? This is as though each one of these would suffice to make a person blessed, as is declared to be the case in the rewards they merit. For it is said (Matt. 5:3): “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Likewise for each of the other beatitudes a reward is indicated, from which it would seem that each grace itself would suffice for salvation. We diligently request that these be distinguished from one another, so that it may become more clearly apparent whether each in itself will be sufficient, if they do not all occur together in the same person.

Abelard’s Solution There are seven goods distinguishable in the seven beatitudes by which we may deserve to attain the joys of eternal life. The one that is regarded as the eighth is more like a testing of the preceding beatitudes than still another of them. For it says (Matt. 5:10): “Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Because persecutions are an imminent threat to the blessed faithful, they are not on this account to be considered less blessed. This is implied in the preceding beatitudes, as if to say “these are not less blessed when they suffer persecutions, but they are for this reason more proven when they do not fail this test.” There are three orders of the faithful: those who are enclosed, those who govern, and those who are married. In the first three beatitudes, I believe, the cloistered are carefully described; after these three, the next two must refer especially to those who govern. Since the last two refer to those who are married, this order is an aid to memory. The order of the cloistered surpasses the others in perfection of life. The second order belongs to those who govern, although they may seem more dignified in power than those who are continent. For the beautiful yet barren Rachel stood out as more pleasing to the patriarch than the homely yet fertile Leah (Gen. 29), and the better part belonged to Mary in her enjoyment of leisure than to Martha in household activity (Luke 10:39). The last order belongs to those who are married, and who are far removed from the cloistered and do not deserve to be compared with those who govern, even though both belong to the active life. For as Truth says a little further on (Matt. 5:19): “Whoever teaches and obeys the Law (referring to the teachers and prelates of the Church) will be called great in the kingdom of heaven,” just as the cloistered will be called the greatest and the married less great. Beginning then with those who are greatest in virtue and priority before God in religious dignity, their sanctity is regarded as threefold, since he describes them as the poor in spirit, the meek and those who mourn. One is called blessed by virtue of having done well, that is, of having formed good habits. They are called the poor in spirit who do not bear poverty from necessity, which means that they desire poverty through a logic taught by God, whom they love, despising riches and fleeing them as injurious. They have heard what the Lord says (Matt. 19:24): “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God.” Therefore, here he calls this logic “Spirit,” just as the Apostle, who follows it, also says (Gal. 5:17): “For the flesh has desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.” Who does not know that concupiscence belongs more to the soul than the body? But the flesh has desires against the spirit, when in that soul sensuality, which means pleasure coming from the weakness of the flesh, repels reason. Thus, according to the Apostle, often being overcome, we act as we do not wish to act, that is, perform actions that we do not think should be performed. So while the Spirit, that is, reason, suggests that we do what we should, carnality pulls us back. As a result, many difficulties occur; the Spirit is overcome by the dominance of the flesh, and subjected to it, so that a person must be described as carnal or animal-like, given up to the desires of the flesh like a beast. “Because theirs is the kingdom of heaven:” In this way he judges the poor in spirit as blessed, because those who rationally despise earthly things merit heavenly ones. So the poor in spirit are those who prefer God to possessions or the pursuit of honor, and desire nothing for pleasure. Content with what is necessary, they abstain even from what is permitted, lest they be seized by earthly pleasures, and they perform their work for God rather than the world. Such are those who leave the tumult of worldly life for monastic quietude, so that the purer the space they create for God and the self, the remoter will be the cares of the world, and the less burdened with worldly baggage they are, the more easily they will fly to heaven. So, too, Jerome, concentrating on what is prefigured in that prince of monks, says in a certain place: “Elijah, hastening to the kingdom of heaven, left his cloak on the ground.” When such as these have become the poor in spirit, it is necessary for them to become meek and humble. For those who claim no earthly goods can hardly be moved to anger at losing possessions or bearing injuries. To those in good possession of themselves and cut off from the power of fleshly impulses is granted as a reward the land of the living, that is, the stability of the blessed, as he says (Matt. 5:5): “For they will inherit the land.” Describing this virtue of patience and humility, Jeremiah says (Lam. 3:22ff.): “It is good for a man to bear a yoke from his youth. Let him sit alone and in silence, when it is laid upon him. Let him put his mouth to the dust; there may yet be hope. Let him offer his cheek to be struck; let him be filled with disgrace.” A person bears the monastic yoke from his youth if he does not defer receiving it, so that, exhausted in elderly weakness, he will presume to carry what he cannot bear and, seeking bodily rest more than peace of soul, would look to the monastery for pleasures of the world that he had promised himself to flee. Incapable of achieving anything new, he has become like a drone among the bees, which they gather around and impudently devour. With bodily strength now consumed that, as far as he could, he had spent in the service of the devil, with the onset of bodily infirmity, he enjoys a luxurious rest. When it suits him to live a more ascetic life and to struggle against vices, as much as to know that he is less defeated, he may arrive sooner at the reception of the crown for his deeds, if he should have merited it. Such a miserable person, not accustomed from his youth to carry the yoke, is thought to have fallen under the weight that he could not bear. He who observes monastic discipline sits alone in silence, laying claim to both the name of monk and perfection of life. For the term “monk” means one who is solitary, as Blessed Jerome says when he cries out: “What are you doing in the crowd, you who are solitary?” St. Benedict declares that the monk should strive in silence at all times, quoting from Isaiah (32:17) that “silence is the cultivation of justice.” The apostle James, too, recommends this outstanding virtue, saying (3:2) “If someone does not offend in speech, he is a perfect man. He lifts himself above himself, when he controls and restrains himself, subordinating the flesh to the spirit. Subjecting his own will to the will of God, he triumphs gloriously over himself, in conformity with what is written (Prov. 16:22): “A patient man is better than a warrior, and he who rules his temper is better than he who takes a city.” So, then, a person should remain silent, when others reveal his virtue, for fear that, becoming his own messenger, he should vanish into thin air, and though he might seem greater in virtue, he should produce grave evidence of pride. He should remain silent, because he has lifted himself above himself, lest he might acknowledge what he has done and he should pray in fear of falling, because in this life victory is in no way assured. If he should presume to speak about himself, he would announce not his virtue, but his weakness. Thus it is added (Lam:3:29): “Let him put his mouth to the dust; there may yet be hope.” This is to say (Eccl. 10:9): “If, like dust agitated by the temptations of the Devil, and inconstant and dissolute in works, he should confess himself, and if along the way praise should be titillating, he should reprove himself at once, saying: ‘Why are dust and ashes proud?’” “Why are you proud, light dust that the wind blows from the face of the earth?” Saying these words and fearing for himself, let him consider with terror whether perchance there is any hope for him, lest he should be newly vanquished by pride, which he will conquer only by virtue. Lest he should be lifted up by his virtues, he is humiliated by persecutions, so that, through patience, his proven virtue may be the crown that makes the poor in spirit truly meek. So he will turn his cheek to those who strike him and accept all kinds of insults because, whether he is injured by actions or by words, he will be refreshed by them as by the certain sweetness of a delightful flavor. A person turns his cheek to those who strike him when he rejoices in being injured for God’s sake. On the other hand, a person withdraws his cheek when he flees injuries or suffers unwillingly. But why should the just endure these things freely, and rejoice in sufferings? Why is it written of the apostles (Acts 5:41): “So they left the presence of the Sanhedrin, rejoicing that they had been found worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name.” It is also added, and the Prophet says (Lam. 3:31): “The Lord’s rejection does not last forever.” The just man seems cast away from the grace of the Lord and exposed to miseries in this life; whence even of the chief representative, the head of the just himself it was written (Isaiah 53:3): “He was spurned and avoided by men, a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity.” Concerning this rejection or casting off from God, who protects us in adversities, it is written (Psalms 50:3): “0 God, you have rejected us.” But, as has been said, he rejects us in order to test us, whom he will raise up after the victory so that we may be crowned, the hope of the afflicted, through whom they triumph. He himself explained this when he said (Lam. 3:31): “For the Lord’s rejection does not last forever.” This means that he will bring to an end the pains of the afflicted, but not of those who caused this suffering. It should be noted that in handing over the New Testament to his apostles, while at the very beginning advising poverty, so that we might transform the fecundity of earthly things into heavenly happiness, he clearly distinguishes the reward of the Gospel from the reward of the Law, when he establishes as the reward for obedience the promise of so many heavenly things for the Gospel, but so many earthly things for the Law. For the people of Israel according to the flesh, desiring earthly more than heavenly goods, received as their reward what they more actively coveted, so that at least by this promise they might be drawn back from perverse deeds, if their spirit could not yet be washed clean of iniquity. For this reason the Apostle can say (Heb. 7:19), “The Law brought nothing to perfection.” There was perfection neither in its promises nor in its precepts. “Blessed are they that mourn” (Matt. 5:4). A certain healthy mourning is especially appropriate for monks, whether it be the mourning of penitence for sin, or that of separation from the Kingdom. These two kinds of tears are prefigured in Achsah, the daughter of Caleb (Jos. 15:19). She approached her father, who had endowed her with arid land and asked for irrigated land, and her father “gave her the upper and the lower pools.” Since it is fitting for the monk to mourn for the sins of others as well as his own, the great Jerome declares: “The monk has the office, not of teacher but of weeper who mourns for himself and for the world, and fearfully awaits the coming of the Lord.” “For what is the monastic life but a certain kind of more extensive penitence?” So let monks mourn either in this way, as was said, or in the way that will result in their winning the laughter of consolation, about which it was truly said (Matt. 5:5): “they shall be consoled” awaiting that which the Lord promised to the apostles (John 16:28): “Amen, amen I say to you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.” On the other hand, he says to the reprobate (Luke 6:25): “Woe to you who rejoice now, for you will grieve and weep.” For different lives have different circumstances and outcomes; the just weep now, and laugh later, while on the other hand the wicked who laugh shall weep. The just will receive consolation by being liberated, whether from the commission of sin or from being separated from the Kingdom, when they arrive at that life which is entirely immune from suffering. “Blessed are they that hunger” (Matt.5:6). After the life of the cloistered, which he considered in three beatitudes, the Lord proceeds to the order of those who govern, which he considers in two beatitudes. Those who govern within the people of God are not only those among the priests exercising ecclesiastical power, but also lay persons among the ruling class. It is to be noted that the binary number, which is appropriate for those who are married, is unclean, according to Jerome. On this account, the works of the second day of creation did not merit praise, and the unclean animals were ordered sent into the ark two-by-two, while the continent seem to be described more appropriately by the trinary, which is an uneven number, rather than by the binary. For the others, however, in whom the virtue of continence is not pre-eminent, the binary number seems more fitting. To hunger and thirst for due, appropriate justice is a great desire in those who govern, so that they would wish to punish wrongs committed, in conformity with their obligation to do so, and yet not to the extent that the delinquent merit punishment. Otherwise, there would be no place in them for mercy, if they did not relieve anyone of the punishment due for crimes. Even the heavenly judge, whom earthly judges should imitate, so tempers justice with mercy that he does not punish misdeeds as much as they deserve, but rather as much as is fitting for him whose mercies are upon all his works. For this reason, it is written of him (Psalm 77:10): “Has God forgotten pity? Does he in anger withhold his compassion?” Again (Hab. 3:21): “When you are angry, you will remember pity.” So he exalts justice with mercy, and commends the judge rather than the punishment. These two qualities should always be combined in a judge so that he punishes the crime with justice, yet less than it deserves, through that clemency which here he calls “mercy.” The word “mercy” comes from the word “miseries;” the miseries of others evoke that human compassion by which, more from the soul’s weakness than from virtue, we abhor the pains, both just and unjust, that afflict the sufferer. Such is the natural compassion of soul that, whether it is rational or not, is properly called “mercy,” according to the text of Seneca. Clemency, however, which here has been called “mercy here,” is reasonable compassion as such, through which we wish to help those whom we should help. Whoever possesses justice without mercy, so that he wishes to avenge and not to relax the punishment, is cruel. Unless he changes, he is remiss. When the Lord, instructing us well in this context regarding the habits of those who govern, advocates that no justice be exercised without mercy, he draws them to himself as inseparable companions. There can even be various kinds of remission of punishment for those who are to be executed, if we try to shorten their sufferings, and choose an easier kind of death penalty. Otherwise, we incur this sentence (James 2:13): “There will be a merciless judgment for one who does not act mercifully.” If the merciful deserve mercy, the unmerciful deserve to be deprived of it. Then, after the continent and those who govern, he comes to those who are married, saying (Matt. 5:18), “Blessed are the clean of heart.” Since he says “clean of heart” and not “of body,” he implies the life of married couples indulging in the desire of the flesh and conceded the concupiscence of desire. Although the union of spouses has indulgence, since in this way they seek to remedy their incontinence and do not seek this for the sake of pleasure and enjoyment of the flesh after the manner of beasts. Nonetheless, the flesh carries with it not a little contagion from the stain of lust, as well as the uncleanness and stench of contamination. The clean of heart but not of body, however, are those who seek this not for the sake of pleasure, as we have said, but from necessity, in order not to offend God by fornication. These are also to be saved and not deprived of the vision of God, in which the height of true blessedness consists. Those persons are also called “peacemakers,” who avoid the great struggle of the flesh by the indulgence of matrimony, rationally and moderately using it in such a way as to make peace also with God and not offend him through intemperance. So they are to be embraced among the children of God, who are now compelled to serve one another in the flesh by the bond of matrimony. Jerome understands the Apostle to refer to this service when he asked (I Cor. 7:21), “Were you a slave when you were called? Do not be concerned, even if you can obtain your freedom. For the slave called by the Lord is a freed person in the Lord.” What greater servitude could there be than that of a man or woman having no power over his or her body, not being able to have relief from the use of the flesh except by giving in to it, so that they neglect prayer? Nonetheless, these will be called children of God, since they shall pass from this servitude to the freedom of eternal life, where “they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven” (Matt. 22:30). Let this brief discussion suffice to explain the distinctions among the beatitudes we have been considering, that is, virtues or gifts of divine grace by which we become blessed. But remaining to be discussed here is how individuals who may have only one of the designated gifts can be said to be blessed, since observing only a single commandment of God is hardly enough, especially because anyone fulfilling all of them except one incurs damnation by breaking just a single commandment. As far as I can see, however, the one who first said: “Blessed are the poor” and then added “in spirit” implies the same adjective in all the rest, as if “the meek in spirit” or “the mournful in spirit” were spoken. Thus through the Spirit of God, which should be understood in these matters as his charity, this beatitude, too, and any others that follow will make not only the faithful but also others outstanding and abundant in good works. Just as it is certain that there are four elements, and that words are selected for their uses, which means that whatever element is most abundant in them, they may be most properly designated by it. Here, too, the graces of the faithful may be distinguished by what proves to abound in them. For the love of God may be said to encourage the poor in spirit, whom he makes more fervent and more perfect in the contempt of riches. Similarly, the love of God leads the meek to prefer the virtue of patience to others and concerning other beatitudes we seem to find similar meanings. The love of God is the maker of all those who are blessed or who are worthy of beatitude, and with the love of God no one can perish, even if they may still need greater perfection through the gifts of God. There are different words to express the reward, when it is said (Matt. 5:25): “For theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” or “For they will inherit the land” (Matt. 5:5). These expressions hardly seem different in signifying the reward to be received, but avoiding fastidious similarity, the Lord varied the words according to a certain agreement that they possess with the things promised, according to propriety of speech and similarity of subject matter. This is easy to understand in the individual beatitudes. For it is fitting that the kingdom of heaven is promised to the poor, so that those who despise earthly riches for the sake of God, may merit heavenly ones. To the meek, who take possession of themselves in doing good, is promised the possession of the land of the living. For those who mourn, consolation is fitting. To those who hunger and thirst for justice is promised fulfillment, that is, realization of what they desire to receive before God, in whose love they have the highest expectations for the punishment of the wicked by the exercise of justice. So also in the remaining expressions of reward, there a certain appropriateness to the beatitude promised can be attributed. Therefore the Lord did not so much prescribe that the beatitudes should be treated in themselves as admonish by means of them those who wish to become more perfect in the various states of life. For he himself prophesies that he will give us a New Testament to foster an abundance of perfection, saying (Matt. 5:20): “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Heloise: Problem XV What does it mean that even after the Lord said (Matt. 5:17): “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets,” nonetheless John can write (5:18): “For this reason the Jews tried all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the sabbath, but he also called God his own father, making himself equal to God”?

Abelard’s Solution When he said “I have not come to abolish” and afterwards added “but to fulfill,” he is concerned with the moral precepts rather than the legislative ones. Just as the latter hold together by virtue of the fulfillment that he presumed, he indicated what he meant by the abolition of the commandments of the Law, that is, with respect to moral precepts. These precepts belong to the purposes of life itself, just as the legislative ones need to be promulgated. The moral commandments are those that are to be fulfilled naturally by every one at all times, and even before the written Law was given, they were necessarily an essential aspect of human behavior. Unless these prescribed commandments are fulfilled, no one could ever merit salvation. These are the precepts that command us to love God and neighbor, not to kill, not to commit adultery, not to lie, and the like. Without fulfilling these, no one can ever be justified. The legislative, however, are precepts of the Law considered according to the letter, and they confer no justice by their operation. They were instituted at a particular time to legislate some kind of justice, such as the observance of the Sabbath, circumcision, abstinence from certain kinds of food and the like. Therefore it must have been in referring to the moral precepts of the Law that the Lord said that he had come not to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it, that is, he had hardly come to abolish what the Law contained with regard to its moral precepts, but to supply through the Gospel what was lacking in the Law concerning these precepts. The Law of Moses never prescribed love of one’s enemy, but only of one’s friend; nor did it teach that the consummation of sin is in the mind, but forbade actions rather than their intention. Even though the Law also prohibited concupiscence, nevertheless we should not think that by virtue of the Law concupiscence was constituted as a crime or prohibited, unless according to the letter, it affected a neighbor, that is, someone who was not a stranger to his own people. For the Law did not call everyone a person’s neighbor according to the letter, but clearly distinguished the stranger from the neighbor, when it said that the Jew should not lend money at interest to a neighbor, but could do so to a stranger.

Heloise: Problem XVI How, too, does the Lord place the abundance of the Gospel ahead of the imperfection of the Law, when he says (Matt. 5:20): “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven? Or how is it that, as the Apostle says (Heb. 7:18-19): “An earlier commandment is annulled because of its weakness and uselessness; for the Law brought nothing to perfection?” When the rich man asked how he would possess eternal life, the Lord responded with the two commandments of love that are in the Law (Luke 10:18): “Do this and you will live” and the Apostle can say (Matt. 5:43): “The one who loves another has fulfilled the Law,” for “You shall not commit adultery; you shall not kill” (Rom. 13:8). And again (Rom. l3:l0): “Love does no evil to the neighbor; hence love is the fulfillment of the Law.”

Abelard’s Solution When the Lord says, “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees,” you notice that he says “righteousness” and not “righteousness according to the Law.” Likewise in what follows he declared, “You have heard that it was said (Matt. 5:43): ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” This was hardly to be found in the Law itself, but rather in the traditions of the scribes and Pharisees attached to the Law, concerning which the Lord said (Matt. 15:6): “You have nullified the word of God for the sake of your tradition.” Above all, the Law itself prescribes, concerning the love of one’s enemy, or even regarding the benefits due him, as follows (Exod. 23:4): “When you come upon your enemy’s ox or ass going astray, see to it that it is returned to him. When you notice the ass of someone who hates you lying prostrate under his burden, by no means desert him; help him, rather, to raise it up.” Also in the Psalmist (7:35): “If I have repaid my friend with evil, I who spared those who without cause were my foes.” Then there is Solomon in the Book of Proverbs (20:22): “Say not, I will repay evil! Trust in the Lord and he will help you.” “Rejoice not when your enemy falls, and when he stumbles, let not your heart exult, lest the Lord see it, be displeased with you, and withdraw his wrath from your enemy” (Prov. 24:17). “Do not say: ‘As he has done unto me, so will I do to him; I shall return unto each one according to his works’” (Cf. Prov. 24:12). Again, “If your enemy be hungry, give him food to eat, if he be thirsty, give him to drink, for live coals you will heap upon his head, and the Lord will reward you” (Prov. 25:21-22). Also, the blessed Job (31:29-30): “Had I rejoiced at the destruction of my enemy or exulted when evil fell upon him, even though I had not suffered my mouth to sin by uttering a curse against his life?” Therefore in former times it was neither ordered nor permitted in the Law that its adherents should hold their enemy in contempt but, as has been said, this was contained in their human traditions rather than in their divine precepts. So when the Lord says (Matt. 5:20), “surpassing that of the scribes and Pharisees,” he does not say, “surpassing that of the Law,” and we should not conclude from this that the Lord set the abundance of the Gospel ahead of the imperfection of the Law. Therefore we do not concede that the Law in its precepts was so imperfect that it was necessary for the Gospel to replace it, just as the Apostle whom we cited above, openly professed. But neither could the commandment regarding the love of neighbor have been perfect before the coming of Christ, for he himself came and became our neighbor and made that precept perfect, as much by his assuming of flesh as by his demonstration of love, so that now whoever loves him as his neighbor may be made perfect by this love. So also, answering the same rich man who asked who was his neighbor, the Lord responded through the parable, signifying that he is that neighbor represented by the Samaritan who had mercy on the injured man and professed by his display of compassion that the rich man, too, could truly have been the neighbor. Or if, then, as it is contained in the Law (Matt. 5:43): “You shall love your friend, that is, your neighbor,” we may understand that if there he is the neighbor who is joined to us by acquaintance or by love, no one is more rightly to be called our neighbor than Christ. In him the love of neighbor may now be made perfect, which earlier had been imperfect, as long as the Law had its status, which enforced it until the time of John (the Baptist). Thus it was imperfect earlier, as long as it was properly called the Law, and one was obliged to obey it in all things; for this reason, its very imperfection, it was condemned when the perfection of Gospel teaching arrived, in which whatever is necessary is expressed directly rather than in parables. Even though we should diligently insist on the letter of the Law, which was given only to the Jewish people, the term “neighbor” should hardly be understood to refer only to one of them. Through Christ, this commandment of love of neighbor would seem to pertain not just to those included under the Law. For this reason, the Law had necessarily to yield to the Gospel enjoined upon all in general, so that through it all should be saved. Therefore, to the neighbor mentioned earlier, that is, Christ, the Apostle refers (Rom. 13:8): “He who loves another has fulfilled the Law.” But as proof he added immediately: “You shall not commit adultery; you shall not kill, etc.” For if the Jew loves Christ as encompassed among his neighbors, as the Lord himself said (John 14:23): “Whoever loves me will keep my word,” then he shall not sin in adultery or in homicide, and he shall avoid all similar sins that are in the Law, and he shall fulfill its righteousness.

Heloise: Problem XVII What does it mean when our Lord says (Matt, 5:36): “Do not swear by your head, for you cannot make a single hair white or black?” Does it mean that if one could do this, then it would be licit to swear by one’s head?

Abelard’s Solution Those matters pertaining to this commandment must be reviewed so that by considering these issues and this review we may make a judgment more easily. The Lord says (Matt. 5:34-35): “I say to you, do not swear at all; not by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by earth, for it is his footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King; do not swear by your head, for you cannot make a single hair white or black.” So there are these four: heaven, earth, Jerusalem, and our own head, by which we are forbidden to swear, because these things that we value as the most venerable commit us to the highest kind of oath, so that by virtue of them, someone might more readily believe in us. Those seem worthy of greater veneration that pertain above all to God and heaven, which is called God’s throne, that is, the soul of Christ, upon which Divinity has its special seat, which it inhabits most fully through grace. The earth, which is called God’s footstool, is the humanity of Christ, as the earthly and inferior creature in Christ; Jerusalem, the city of God, is the Holy Church, whose head is Christ himself. Hairs adhering to the head, adorning and protecting it, are the divine things by which Christ is commended and conserved in us through faith. Some of them are called “long,” some “black;” while the understanding of others is clear and manifest, the understanding of still others is obscure, just like those treated allegorically. Whether any of them are to be white, as was said, or black, is not within our control, for the eloquence of God does not pertain to human invention; these are not our own documents, but God’s. So when he says: “Do not swear by your head, for you cannot make a single hair white or black,” it is as if he says: “You should not invoke Christ in an oath, because this should belong to his divine wisdom alone, and so do those things, of which, as we said, some are white, and others black.” Likewise when he commands that we should not swear by heaven, which is God’s throne, it should be taken to mean that we should not choose to swear by him who has such dignity that he is superior to all creatures. In these phrases the negative word placed before the sentence excludes the cause itself, and is not interposed to permit and establish the cause. The negative particle placed before the entire sentence has one kind of force, to negate the entire sentence all at once, while the particle attached to a single part of the sentence is interposed as such and has another kind of force. It is one thing to say, “It is not because you have done this that you have sinned,” and quite another thing to say, “You have sinned because you did not do this.” For in the first sentence, “It is not because of this that he sinned,” the cause of sin is removed, so it may be certain that one has not sinned, where the cause might be interpreted to that effect. In fact, it does not demonstrate that he had not sinned, but only that “it was not because of this that he sinned,” so that the cause of sin is removed rather than the sin itself. That is why the Lord prescribes or exhorts concerning oath-taking, because it is dangerous to swear. In order not to perjure ourselves entirely, we should beware of oath-taking as much as possible, lest we should desire to swear upon the dignity that something may have in itself, whether it be God, or Christ, or any creature of God who has attained some dignity before others. To swear upon anything at all is for us to concede to the one before whom we swear that there is nothing useful in the thing by which we have sworn, unless the matter that we are affirming by the oath is true. While in ecclesiastical cases all of this is controversial, so that the Apostle says (Heb. 6:16): “Let the oath be the end,” in this case the Lord does not prescribe that we should not take an oath but, rather, exhorts us not to. For some things are prescribed, some are prohibited, some encouraged and some permitted. Things are prescribed or prohibited by which or because of which we might despair of our salvation. Therefore, all evils are prohibited, and all goods are prescribed, most of all those that seem necessary to salvation, such as belief in God and loving not only oneself but also one’s neighbor, not committing adultery and the like. But those goods that are not so necessary, whether because they concern a stricter or laxer life or are too exalted or too lowly to be covered by the precept, possess either the persuasion of good counsel, such as virginity, or the permission of indulgence, such as matrimony. If there were a precept requiring virginity, matrimony would be condemned, and if there were a precept requiring matrimony, virginity would be condemned. Therefore, good counsel consists in either persuasion to greater goods or permission for lesser ones, that is, those of lesser merit, when counsel of the better good is met with diffidence or lack of disposition. So those things that may happen or be permitted have no commandment, but only admonition, such as never to take an oath, but do have permission, regarding when this may take place from necessity, as, for example, when during an inquisition into the truth, taking an oath is part of the witness’s duty. It is permission, however, when it is said (I Cor. 7:2): “Because of cases of immorality, every man should have his own wife.” It is a precept, however, when it is said (I Cor. 7:27): “Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek a separation.” It is advice and persuasion when this is immediately added: “Are you free of a wife? Then do not look for a wife.”

Heloise: Problem XVIII What is the meaning of the statements in Matthew’s Gospel (6:31): “Do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?” And again (6:34): “Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for the day is its own evil?” Could it be that he forbids provision for the future? Could this be the same Lord who uses as an example the man who wanted to build a tower and worries about how much it would cost? The Apostle also says (2 Cor. 11:28): “If one has the care of others, it should be exercised diligently,” just as he says of himself, “There is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.”

Abelard’s Solution The Lord is really referring to exaggerated solicitude about the future, as, for example, when in preparing some things, we neglect others that are more necessary, and for the sake of preparing tomorrow’s food, we neglect to seek God’s kingdom from him in prayer, asking that he should make us such that in us he himself would reign, and not sin. It is as if he said, “Do not burden yourselves with unnecessary concerns about the future before it arrives, because when it does arrive, it will bring with it enough solicitude for those who confide less in the Lord concerning necessary things, not having listened to the saying of the Prophet (Psalm 55:23): “Cast your care upon the Lord, and he will support you.” “Sufficient for the day is its own evil” (Matt. 6:34). This means that, in each particular time of life, the endurance of its own hardship and care should be enough. This would seem to relieve us of superfluous temporal cares that make us forget the things of eternity. The Apostle was saying that solicitude for the good, or for those things that pertain to eternal life, is foresight, that is, reasonable care for things in the future or near future. This means that we should be making temporal provision for eternal ones, so that those who are hastening toward eternity may be sustained with some necessary food for the journey.

Heloise: Problem XIX What does this mean (Matt. 7:1-2): “Stop judging, that you may not be judged. For as you judge, so will you be judged.” Does it mean that if we make an unjust judgment, we will be judged unjustly in return?

Abelard’s Solution Not judging means not presuming to burden anyone with a certain judgment when matters themselves are uncertain. For when a man is obviously angry, that event makes a judgment in itself, and yours is not needed. So the Apostle also says (I Cor. 5:4): “Do not make any judgment before the appointed time, until the Lord comes, for he will bring out what is hidden in our hearts.” The Lord comes to reveal what is hidden when by his disposition things that were hidden become apparent or when, according to his law, we investigate any debatable matter, or when we legislate a penalty in cases that require judgment. Then it is the Lord himself who judges and punishes, and not ourselves. “For as you judge, so will you be judged.” This is as if he had said, “Therefore in judging, you should not presume to burden others, because you will receive a like judgment before God.” In the end, he did not say, “You shall not judge,” but rather, “Do not wish to judge,” so that we should not desire to do of our own volition what we are nonetheless compelled to do in exercising the office of judge when it is entrusted to us.

Heloise: Problem XX We have a question also about his meaning in adding what follows (Matt. 7:12): “Do unto others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the Law and the Prophets.” For if anyone should wish another person to consent with him in wrongdoing, would he be obliged to give his consent to the other in a similar matter?

Abelard’s Solution There are two precepts of the natural law concerning the love of one’s neighbor: the one referred to in this place and the other we read in Tobias (4:15). Here he says to his son, “Do to no one what you yourself dislike.” What is true of the bad is true also of the good. Just as we do not want bad things to happen to us and so do not inflict them on others, the contrary is also true that, just as we would like others to give us good things, we should be ready to give them in return. So when it is said, “What you would have others do to you,” it means, what you know in your conscience that others should do to you. For nothing in our conscience approves of our consenting to wrongdoing, but only doing those things it considers good and worthy of being done. So, too, the Apostle, in saying (Rom. 7:15): “I do not act as I intend to” understands by the words “I intend to” that which I approve of being done. But what is meant by saying “whatever you would have them do to you?” For many people, on account of the dignity or diversity of persons, believe that many things should be done for them that they hardly recognized as their own obligation to do for others. We can see this with respect to prelates and those subject to them, when they require others to do many things for them that they would never feel obliged do for others. But, in fact, we should understand the matter in this way, that whatever we believe should be done for us by others, we should be prepared to do for them, too, not necessarily each and everyone, but those who are like ourselves, that is, who are worthy to receive these things from us that we are worthy to receive from them. In the case of Tobias (4:15): “Do to no one what you yourself dislike,” there is posed something of a question, when a person who executes another in the service of justice does not wish to undergo the same experience as that other person. When someone exercises justice on behalf of God, it is God who does the action rather than that person, as we said some time ago. Therefore it can be prescribed that one should not do to another what he would hate to have done to himself, for when someone punishes another justly, it is God or the Law rather than the human agent who performs the act.

Heloise: Problem XXI What does it mean when the Apostle says (1 Thes. 5:17): “Pray unceasingly.”

Abelard’s Solution Never neglect a moment when we should be praying.

Heloise: Problem XXII What is it that Matthew means to say about the faith of the centurion who had asked a favor on behalf of his servant (8:10): “When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to his followers: ‘Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I seen such faith’” Is it not the case that people do not call something amazing unless they see something unexpected happening that they had never known or believed to have happened before?

Abelard’s Solution: Jesus is said to have been amazed, because in acting as if he were amazed, he made others amazed at the faith of the centurion, whom he praised so highly.

Heloise: Problem XXIII What did Luke mean when he said (6:30): “Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours, do not demand its return?”

Abelard’s Solution When he said “give,” he did not add “the thing he asks for,” but indicated in this that we do not send away empty, without giving, anyone who begs from us. At least excusing ourselves conveniently in our response, we should strive not to displease him, but to build up charity in him, so that whether the reply is flattering or convenient, it should consist in some free gift of favor. “Do not demand back what is yours,” that is, “because it is yours,” lest you should assume for yourself rather than for God the act of restoration. The religious person does not refuse, if they should be offered to him, those things that he had possessed on God’s account and had requested back on his own account, and he spends them to good purposes, freeing them from the theft of the violent. For the Lord also says, according to Luke’s next words (6:32-33): “If you love those who love you or if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you?” When he says, “those who love you,” it is like his saying “do not demand back what is yours,” that is, what pleases you because it is yours. It would be wicked for us not to love those by whom we are loved, since we are commanded to love everyone, and that includes God, who loves us, just as he himself said (Prov. 8:17): “Those who love me, I also love.” Rather than loving God because he is useful to us, we should love him with the most supreme love just for himself, because he is the highest good. This is the ordained love, that we should love more, for this reason, whoever is better and more worthy; this means that we should desire him to be better, as is just.

Heloise: Problem XXIV Why is it that the Lord says (Matt. 15:11): “It is not what enters the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of it?” Can it be, then, that one incurs no stain of sin by consuming stolen goods or from what he believes to be illicit, even though it may be licit, or from receiving communion unworthily? The Apostle speaks about certain Jews who were converted to the faith and yet, on account of the Law, still distinguished certain foods from others as unclean. He says (Rom.14:23): “But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because this is not from faith; for whatever is not from faith is sin.” He also says about those who were eating with idolators, out of reverence for idols (I Cor. 8:7): “There are some who have been so used to idolatry until now, that when they eat meat sacrificed to idols, their conscience, which is weak, is defiled.” How, then, can the Lord now say that what enters through the mouth does not defile a man, but rather that which comes out of the mouth?   Abelard’s Solution In this place, above all, the Lord carefully points out how sin is to be understood, and in disputing with the Jews about this, he teaches us as well. For they were looking more towards the deeds than towards the soul, and judged good as well as bad things from externals rather than from what was contained within the mind. The Lord truly reduces all things to the intention, and in his estimation a person is condemned by what is in the heart, rather than by the appearance of his actions. Nor does he judge a soul to be polluted except by those things that are within it and touch it closely, because souls can have spiritual stains just as bodies have bodily stains. This is how he explains what he had said (Matt. 15:11): “But what comes out of the mouth is what defiles a person.” For he goes on to say: “But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart and they defile.” From the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, unchastity, theft, false witness, blasphemy. It is these that defile a person; but “to eat with unwashed hands does not defile” (Matt. 15:18-20). This is as if he had said clearly, “The bodily stains on hands do not touch the soul, so they cannot pollute the soul with sin. Polluting thoughts come from the heart when we consent to the continuation of the thoughts that we are thinking.” Where there is no understanding, however, there can be no consent, such as in very young children or in the mindless. For when they do what they should not do, no sin is imputed to them. Neither homicide, nor adultery, nor any other sin can exist, the Lord says, except that proceeding from the heart, that is, when we recognize as forbidden the sins to which we are inclined to consent. So just as thoughts come from the heart, when they tend to consent to deeds, so the Lord teaches that homicide, adultery, and other sins proceed from the heart. They are not sins unless there was first consent in the heart that was manifested in deeds. After someone consents to doing what he knows is not permitted, the consent itself is properly called sin; even homicide or lust exist before God in this way. Therefore as Truth itself says (Matt. 5:28): “Everyone who looks on a woman with lust,” (that is, who in looking at her has come to consent to concupiscence) “has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (that is, has completed the sin in his soul even if he has not yet consummated it in action). When we receive any food wrongly knowing that it is forbidden to us, it is hardly the food itself entering our mouths that pollutes the soul, but our conscience has already done this before the fact. Sin consists not in our consuming something by mouth now, but in our having already consented to consume it.

Heloise: Problem XXV What is the meaning of Matthew’s (really Luke’s) declaration, in which the Lord reproaches certain cities, saying (Luke 10:13): “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty deed done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.” Now the Lord had come to save people, and so he is called by the name, Jesus, which means “Savior.” Why, then, does he withhold from the Gentile cities of Tyre and Sidon the miracles of his good deeds through which they would have been saved, and bestow them on others for whom he knew that they would mean harm and not profit? But see how he himself proclaims (Matt. 15:24): “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But I say, why would he be sent to them, unless it were so that they would be saved? But if it were so that they should be saved, what did it profit them that those miracles were performed for them by which they would be more gravely condemned, not being converted to repentance but persisting in their obstinance. So even the Lord himself declares (Luke 10:14): “But it will be more tolerable at the Judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you.” John tells us (4:36) how a multitude of the Samaritans did believe on hearing about Christ, and that he did perform not a few beneficent miracles for the Gentiles, both men and women, by which they came to believe, and were confirmed in faith, just as in the case of the centurion’s son (Matt. 3:5; Luke 7:2), and the daughter of the Syro-Phoenician woman, who happened to come from the region of Tyre itself (Mark 7:26).

Abelard’s Solution The Lord Jesus was sent in his own person to the Jews alone. Therefore what mercy he bestowed upon the Gentiles was not done in the fulfillment of this mission. It was, rather, as an act of grace added to what was due, seeing that, as he himself said (Luke 17:10): “When you have done all that you have been commanded to do, say ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.” It is as though he were saying: “Do not consider it a great thing if you fulfill what is owed by obedience unless you add to this debt something of grace, as those do who strive for virginity or continence, virtues that do not fall under a precept.” Finally, he came not so much as one sent to offer prescribed benefits to the Gentiles, but only when invited and urged by prayers to do these things. That is why he withheld his preaching from those who, as he testifies, would have been in this way converted to repentance. We are not compelled by this to maintain that they would have persevered in this penitence, so that they would have been saved. For there are many superficial, light-minded people, who are easily moved by the compunction of penitence, and by that same facility they slip back into the evil deeds for which they had wept, like dogs returning to their vomit. While they eagerly receive the words of preaching which they have heard, they do not put down firm roots so that they might persevere in what they have begun. Although we would offer preaching to those from whom he himself withheld the grace of preaching, it belongs to him who does nothing without reason to know why he did not decree that this should be done. The Apostle raises the question of Esau from whom grace was withheld, but leaves the question undiscussed.

Heloise: Problem XXVI It seems to me that we ought to ask by what mystery or for what reason the Lord looked for fruit on the fig-tree when, as Mark says (11:12): “It was not the season for figs.” Then, striking the tree with his curse, he made it dry, so from that time it remained withered, as if by this blow he had imposed his curse upon it.

Abelard’s Solution The tree that was found without fruit is Judaea, reproved by the Lord for its wickedness, so that it deserved to be deprived of the fruit of good works, for not having recognized the time of its visitation. But their fault occurred because it was not the time for their fruit, after they had refused the grace offered them by the Lord’s preaching.

Heloise: Problem XXVII What is the meaning of this saying: “May his plea be in vain?” (Psalm 109:7).

Abelard’s Solution It should be interpreted in this way, in a negative sense, as when a person might choose to pray more for harmful things than for beneficial ones and seek to obtain by prayer those things that lead to sin rather than to salvation.   Heloise: Problem XXVIII Concerning the Apostle Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians (5:23): “May the God of peace himself make you perfectly holy and may you be entirely—spirit, soul and body—preserved blameless for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” What does he mean by saying both spirit and soul, as if the soul were not spirit, or as if there were two spirits in a single person?

Abelard’s Solution Here the Apostle uses “spirit” to signify “reason,” that is, “discretion of soul,” as in the place where he says (Gal. 5:17), “the spirit against the flesh,” So it is as if he had said “Let your spirit be integral, that is, let your reason be so perfect and incorruptible that error may not in any way cause it to be driven from the truth.” As for the word “soul,” this refers to the “will,” as in the saying (Matt. 10:39), “whoever loves his own soul will lose it.” This means that whoever follows his own will shall be deprived of that will later, so that whoever fulfills his own will here will not have what he wills in the future. Therefore our soul, that is, our will, is whole, meaning “integral,” when it does not depart from the Divine Will. The body, too, is kept integral, or whole, when the functioning of our bodily senses is not corrupted by unlawful acts of the flesh and our eye has not despoiled our soul, nor has “death come up through our windows” (Jer. 9:20). In these three ways we are sanctified in all things, when we are in no way excessive in the discretion of reason or in dependence on our own will, or in the pleasures of the senses, so that the body dominates the spirit. Then let us preserve ourselves without complaint, that is, without protesting, until the coming of the Lord, persisting in this state until the Last Judgment, or at least deserving to be found in such a state.

Heloise: Problem XXIX What is the meaning of this saying in the letter to the Ephesians (Ephes. 3:18-19): “That you may have strength to comprehend with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Abelard’s Solution “That you may have strength to comprehend” means to experience in yourselves the breadth of the saints in charity through which they extend themselves even to their enemies. The “length” means the long-continuing perseverance in charity, or of patience in adversity, through that very charity which “suffers all things, bears all things.” Their “height and depth” mean how great they are before God in these two dimensions through the fullness of their merits, and how small and infirm they are to themselves through humility. The “depth,” after all, refers to what is low or humble. How great and sublime before God are those who experience their own reward. To the extent that they are distinguished for their humility here on earth, so much the more do they deserve to be exalted, and the less they regard themselves here, so much more do they deserve to receive from God. The “breadth” of the saints, or the Church, which is the body of Christ, they understand as having been prefigured in his Cross itself, to which his body was nailed. For in the breadth of the Cross, on which Christ was spread out with his hands attached to the right and to the left, the breadth of charity is depicted, embracing even enemies, who are, as it were, on the left, that is, in adversity, just as friends are on the right. The hands attached to the right and left parts of the Cross are the works of charity, extended equally in benefits to enemies and friends. The Lord exhibited from the Cross itself this “breadth” of charity, as he demonstrated care for his mother, commending her to the disciple, and prayed for those being crucified. But just as “breadth” extends to the right and the left, so length extends upward and downward, as the Lord himself stood erect from head to foot upon the Cross. This “length” prefigures his perseverance in patience unto the consummation of his life, which means unto the consummation of our redemption. About this he himself said (John 19:30): “It is finished.” The Apostle Paul says too (Phil. 2:18): “He became obedient even unto death.” The “height” of the Cross is that extension on which the title was written above the Lord’s head. In this title was certainly written his name, that is, “Jesus,” which means “most excellent,” concerning which the same Apostle exclaimed (Phil. 2:9): “Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him ‘the name that is above every other name.” In the elect also that higher part added to the Cross signifies something of the reward of the saints, which is apportioned to them beyond their merits out of grace, as the Apostle says (Rom. 8:18): “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed to us.” The “depth” is the lower part of the Cross, by which it is attached to the earth. The “depth” is humble, and the punishment of the Cross is a lowly one, for this kind of death is ignominious, and so the very great humility of Christ is praised. And he himself deserves to be even more exalted, just as we recalled above, in the words (Phil. 2:9): “because of this, God greatly exalted him.” This kind of death had been predicted regarding the impious (Wis. 2:20): “Let us condemn him to a shameful death.” In the elect as well, that lower part of the Cross, by which it is firmly fixed in the earth, stands for the virtue of humility by which, comparing themselves to dust and earth, they deserve to be exalted elsewhere to the degree that they humble and belittle themselves here. And their humility holds them firm and upright in the summit of virtues, just as that part of the Cross affixed to the earth holds it firm and upright. After the charity of the saints, we rise to the height of Christ’s charity, which he exhibits to us and admonishes us to know it and always attend to it, so that we may be held ever more humble in comparison with it, and ever more fervent in our love of it. He presents this supereminent charity of Christ to our knowledge, because it is far greater than we can comprehend by our own intelligence or experience. But, concerning this charity of Christ, when we set our own side by side with his incomparably superior charity then, as has been said, we shall be made ever more humble and more fervent, and we shall be filled with all the perfection of the virtues God has conferred upon us.

Heloise: Problem XXX What is the meaning of the saying about Elkanah in the first Book of Kings (1 Kings 1:3): “This man used to go up on the appointed days to worship?” By whom or by what were these days appointed?

Abelard’s Solution Commenting on the Books of Kings, Rabanus Maurus follows almost to the letter a certain Hebrew meaning: “But when it says “on the appointed days,” this means on the three festivals, Passover, Pentecost, and the solemnity of Tabernacles. Thus the Lord prescribes in Exodus (23:14): “Three times a year you shall celebrate a pilgrim feast to me.” And again he says (Deut. 16:16): “Three times a year every male among you shall appear before the Lord your God in the place which he chooses.” So during that time when the Ark of the Lord was at Shiloh, there Elkanah, who was himself a Levite, after offering sacrifices feasted all together with his wives and Sons and daughters.

Heloise: Problem XXXI What is the meaning of Anna’s reply to the priest when she said (I Kings 1:15-16): “It isn’t that, my lord; I am an unhappy woman. I have neither wine nor liquor; I was only pouring out my troubles to the Lord. Do not think your handmaid a daughter of Belial.”

Abelard’s Solution She says that she is unhappy, as if she were rebuked, because she is cursed with barrenness, and has left no seed in Israel. For the same reason Elizabeth also says (Luke 1:25): “So has the Lord done for me at a time when he has seen fit to take away my disgrace before others.” For the same reason, Deuteronomy says among other things that the Lord promises the people as a reward for their observance of the commandments (Deut. 7:14): “No man or woman among you shall be childless nor shall your livestock be barren.” When Anna says “I have neither wine nor liquor,” she points to the great perfection of such a lay woman or wife. If she had clearly achieved this abstinence then, so that the Lord might more easily hear her prayer about the birth she was requesting, how much more is this abstinence fitting for the virgins of Christ, who strive for a spiritual and far better fruit. She specifically calls “daughters of Belial” those whom the Devil begets for himself as his own proper offspring. For drunkenness affects our state of mind, and extinguishes whatever we may have of the image of God through rationality, so that we become comparable to such beasts as the horse or the mule, which have no intellect. The ancient enemy is called the Devil, which means “flowing downward,” as well as “Zabulus” or “Satan,” which in Latin means “adversary” or “transgressor,” and “Belial,” which means “without yoke.” The latter name is rightly placed where it is, pertaining to the inebriated, because they, like insane persons, submit to no yoke of discipline or of God. So the daughters of Belial remind us of descriptions of the hysterical priestesses of Dionysius.

Heloise: Problem XXXII Also, what is the meaning of this saying about Anna: “And she no longer appeared downcast” (I Sam. 1:18).

Abelard’s Solution She showed from then on a happy face and not a sad or tearful one.

Heloise: Problem XXXIII And what does this mean (I Kings 2:1): “Anna prayed and said, ‘My heart exults in the Lord, etc.”? For this canticle speaks the words of thanksgiving or prophecy more than those of prayer.

Abelard’s Solution As far as I can tell, she had prefaced a canticle to the prayer, by which it, or the act of thanksgiving, might become more acceptable to God. First, about the prayer, it says, “she prayed,” then regarding the canticle, it is added, “and she said, “’My heart rejoices, etc.’” For it is a custom of the church to place a prayer before each of the individual Hours that are to be sung to the praises of God. We read of many canticles belonging to holy women, both to barren women who are to become mothers of prophets, such as Deborah (Judges 5:lff.), Judith (Judith l6:2ff.), and Anna, the mother of Samuel, as likewise to the virgin who would become the mother of the Savior, Mary, the mother of the Lord, singing about the birth assigned to her by the Lord (Luke l:l0ff.). The Church is accustomed to having frequent recourse to the canticle of Anna, just as to that of the great Virgin, not only because of the mother’s sanctity, or the divinity of the birth given to her in Samuel. In him, especially, the prophets are said to have had their beginnings and he was first offered by his mother to the Lord. But this canticle was even more important because nothing else in the women’s canticles sung before the time of the prophets seems to have foretold Christ and his kingdom so clearly as Anna does here. She speaks in this way of the Father of Christ, and of Christ himself (I Kings 2:10): “The Lord judges the ends of the earth. Now may he give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his anointed.” For there was not yet a king established in Israel, to whom this celebration of the prophetess would pertain. She deserved to speak openly of the true Christ, that is, the Messiah. She manifestly predicted the future that Mary sings as fulfilled, as if the prophetic words together with the birth-giving act of the barren woman had given support to the virgin’s faith.

Heloise: Problem XXXIV This saying also raises a question (I Kings 2:5): “The barren wife bears many sons.” For even though Scripture afterwards refers to the fact that, after Samuel, Anna had gone on to give birth to three sons and two daughters, nevertheless, while she was singing this canticle, she cannot be said to have had Samuel yet. Also, how can it be said about her children that they were “very many,” and about the children of her friend, Phenenna, that they were only “many,” as if Anna had more children than Phenenna. Though Scripture does not say how many children Phenenna had, many commentators suggest that she had more than Anna, which would mean at least seven.

Abelard’s Solution We do not need to take the words “very many” here as a comparative adjective, in relation to “fewer,” but rather in the absolute sense, as simply “many,” since various words can be taken in the same sense. It is not impossible that Anna could have had many children when this canticle was sung, even though Scripture had not yet referred to her as having any but Samuel. The sequence of Scripture often does not keep to the chronological order, but rather narrates quite a number of items out of temporal sequence. Anna could also have said this in the spirit of prophecy, while she still had only Samuel. Finally, it would not have been inappropriate to say this about Samuel alone, since even as a single person he would have been more valuable than the sons of Phenenna, though he was only one in number. In this way it may often be that we could say one thing was “more” than another, which, though fewer in number, nonetheless had a higher value.

Heloise: Problem XXXV We also ask about the meaning of this passage (I Kings 18-19): “Meanwhile the boy Samuel ministered before the face of the Lord, as a child girded with a linen ephod. And his mother made him a little coat, which she brought to him on the appointed days, when she went up with her husband to offer the solemn sacrifice.” If Samuel was a Levite, which is very likely, or a priest, being only a boy he would hardly be able to comply with the Law in his ministry, so that at his tender age he could minister girt with the ephod as a Levite or a priest. We wonder also what garment the mother brought to the boy and on what appointed days.

Abelard’s Solution A boy could minister in certain lesser offices, even girt with the linen ephod. That is why Rabanus could make this remark, citing Augustine: Samuel was girt with the ephod bad. This means with linen upon the shoulders, which differed from the ephod that the high priest wore, because the former was only of linen and was allowed to the lesser orders for their use. That which clothed the high priest was of four colors—hyacinth, gray, scarlet, and purple—with a braid of gold. The appointed days were clearly those three festivals mentioned above, according to the Law, so that in each of these high solemnities of the year, the mother devotedly brought her son a new tunic, in which he could minister to the Lord more purely and sincerely. Having the humeral linen above it, by which he was girded, and thus unburdened, he could perform his ministry more expeditiously. If I am not mistaken, we monks now imitate that habit, since our manual labors are usually done in a tunic, with a scapular wrapped about the shoulders. For what is the scapular but a humeral veil. Finally, who would disapprove of Samuel, although he was a boy, ministering in the office of Levite out of necessity? This means also with the help of Eli, since no one else then in the house of Eli would have been found worthy of that office. For there is a well-known saying: “Necessity knows no law.”

Heloise: Problem XXXVI We ask and pose the question who could have been that man of God sent by the Lord to Eli, to correct him and to predict the evils that would befall his house? Also, what is the meaning of, among others, the statement concerning the better priest who would succeed Eli (I Kings 2:35-36): I will raise me up a faithful priest who shall act according to my heart, and my soul, and I will build him a lasting house, and he shall walk all the days before my anointed. Then whoever is left of your family will come to grovel before him for a piece of silver or a loaf of bread and will say: ‘Appoint me, I beg you, to priestly function, that I may have a morsel of bread to eat.’ We know that Samuel, who outlived Eli, was outstanding in his faithfulness to the Lord. But it is the common opinion that he was distinguished more as a Levite than as a priest, and that his house did not stand out as faithful, since his sons were reprobates. It is also said: “He shall walk in the company of my anointed.” We ask whether this is to be understood as referring to the priest himself, or to his house, and who this anointed one might be. Finally, we beg you to explain what is to be understood about the offerings of silver coin and piece of bread, as if they refer to a new offering, which is not contained in the Law, and the other things that are added.

Abelard’s Solution That “man of God” is thought to be an angel appearing in human form. The priest who would succeed Eli was not Samuel, who was a Levite, nor would he have a faithful or a reprobate house; nor does he seem to be understood as some other holy man who would succeed Eli in the priestly order, as Abinadab was, into whose house at Kiriath-jearim the Ark of the Lord was brought back from the Philistines (I Kings 7:1). Nor was he Eleazar, his son, sanctified then for taking care of the Ark, or finally, Ahimelech, whom Saul slew with the rest of the priests in Nob, the city of the priests (I Kings 22:9ff.). So when it is said: “He shall walk in the company of my anointed,” it should be understood as referring not to a priest but to his house, which is subject to his ministry. Finally, regarding what is added about the future and so forth, I have heard a certain Jew explain that the silver coin is a silver shekel, by which anyone might have had himself redeemed by a priest. The piece of bread, Quicar, means the quarter of a loaf, which was the offering of the poor. The part of the priest’s breastbone, that is, the upper part of the breast, the jawbone, the belly, and the tail (which was, however, not always the same), because, according to the varying rites of sacrifice, as we read in Leviticus, a portion used to be given to the priesthood. Thus it was announced to Eli that his house would become so impoverished that those who were in any way the recipients of offerings, to whom also because of Eli himself the portion of the priesthood used to be given, would themselves be redeemed by other priests, begging food and imploring that some small particle of the priestly portion be given to them, along with a small mouthful of bread, which, above, was called a loaf.   Heloise: Problem XXXVII What is the meaning of this statement at the beginning of Mark the evangelist (1:2): “As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: ‘Behold I am sending my messenger ahead of you. A voice of one crying out in the desert, etc.?’” Why does he cite Isaiah when the first quotation that follows immediately is from Malachi, and the second from Isaiah? If, however, he had done the contrary, the truth still stands, that is, what he wrote as a preface attributing the text to Isaiah, would encompass the first quotation.

Abelard’s Solution Because the same sentence is contained in the words of both prophets, the evangelist, expressing himself briefly, ascribed what Malachi said to Isaiah, who is the greater authority, and from whom, perhaps, he had learned this. The voice crying out in the desert—all this is the preaching of John. Isaiah describes John more carefully since he does not call him an angel, but foretells him as one crying out in the desert. So the evangelist always does well, after the quotation from Isaiah, which he put first, immediately adding (Matt. 1:4): “John appeared in the desert, baptizing and ‘proclaiming.” Indeed, the reason he says “in the desert” and “proclaiming” is the more openly to agree with the words spoken by Isaiah, that is, “a voice crying in the desert.” Mark also adds with foresight; after beginning, “It was written in Isaiah,” he adds “the prophet,” as if in the quotation from Isaiah as in that of Malachi (Mal. 3:1), he could be a better prophet than the one who, as I suggest, had taken this quotation from the prophecy of Isaiah, which he had read, not solely through the inspiration of the Spirit. I think that in this way, too, we can understand the testimony taken from two prophets, Zachariah and Jeremiah, which Matthew introduces, attributing all of it to Jeremiah, saying (Matt. 27:9; Zach. 11:12-13): “Then was fulfilled what had been said through Jeremiah the prophet, ‘And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the value of a man with a price on his head, a price set by some of the Israelites, and they paid it out for the potter’s field just as the Lord had commanded me” (Matt.27.9; Zach. 11:12-13). So while both the first testimony of Zachariah and the second of Jeremiah may be conjoined in the same saying of the Lord, Matthew nonetheless attributes the whole to Jeremiah, whose authority was greater, and from whom Zachariah could have taken what he said.

Heloise: Problem XXXVIII Also raising more than a few questions is the testimony of the prophet Zachariah, which the Lord brings forth from within himself in Matthew’s Gospel (26:31): “For it is written: ‘I will strike the shepherds and the sheep of the flock will be dispersed.’” Zachariah seems to say this about a false prophet rather than about the Lord. So it is written in the Book of Zachariah (13:3-7): “If a man still prophesies, his parents, father and mother, shall say to him, ‘You shall not live, because you have spoken a lie in the name of the Lord.’ When he prophesies, his parents, father and mother, will pierce him through. On that day every prophet will be ashamed to prophesy his vision; nor shall he assume garments of sackcloth to deceive, but he shall say: I am no prophet; I am a tiller of the soil like Adam, whose example I have followed from my youth. And if any one asks him, ‘What are those wounds on your chest?’, he shall answer, ‘With this I was wounded in the house of my dear ones.’ ‘Awake, o sword, against my shepherd, against the man who is my associate, says the Lord of Hosts. ‘Strike the shepherd that the sheep may be dispersed and I will turn my hands against the little ones.’

Abelard’s solution Even though Zachariah may have said this about a false prophet, the Lord truly proposed it regarding himself. Although the Lord’squotation was taken from Zachariah, it is such that it would apply to a good shepherd as much as to a bad one. For when he is struck by some adversity, a shepherd, whether good or bad, may be prevented from the pastoral care he has accepted. Then the flock he has kept together is scattered from his control, and wanders around in different groups without a shepherd or leader. Thus, because persecution by adversaries causes the dispersion of a good shepherd’s flock as much as a bad one’s, it is not improper for the Lord to apply to his own Passion what has been said in general about shepherds. This is as if he were to have said that what is generally true of shepherds has been fulfilled also in himself. And thus also what was predicted of the false shepherd shall come about in him, so that even in this way he could be reputed among the wicked because he has been likened to them also in this.

Heloise: Problem XXXIX We ask also how the evangelists wrote such different accounts of the Lord’s prediction to Peter regarding the cock’s crowing. For Matthew writes as follows (36:4): “Jesus said to him: ‘Amen, I say to you, this very night before the cock crows you will deny me three times.’” But Mark, whose gospel is said to have been written at the dictation of Peter himself, says (14:30): “Then Jesus said to him, ‘Amen, I say to you, today in this very night before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times.’” Luke, however, writes as follows (22:34): “I say to you, Peter, the cock will not crow today before you deny three times that you know me.” But John says (13:38): “Amen, amen, I say to you, ‘The cock will not crow before you have denied me three times’” What did the Lord intend by such diversity of wording if he wished to say one thing to Peter in these words. Also, what is the meaning of Mark’s reference to “today in this night” since the night could hardly be in the day, and to the crowing of the cock he adds “twice,” while the others are silent about this?

Abelard’s Solution It is customary in Scripture to encompass day and night equally in the noun “day,” as, for example, when we say that someone has lived or ruled so many years and so many days, or that he was there for so many days. So when Mark said “today,” he meant the night with its own day. When he added, “this night,” he was speaking not of night as a unit of time but of the contentiousness of the coming night. To resolve the question posed by the statements regarding the crowing of the cock, let us posit the Lord’s first saying calmly to Peter, as Mark reports, that “before the cock crowed twice,” and then adding, “after Peter’s promise of his constancy” that he would do so even before the cock would crow. Matthew also very often emphasizes that Peter was overconfident and presumptuously contradicted the Lord’s words. As Matthew reports (26:34): “Peter said to him, ‘Even though all should have their faith shaken, I shall not be.’” Then Jesus said to him: “Amen, I say to you, this very night before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times.” But Peter vehemently replied (26:35): “Even though I should have to die with you, I will not deny you.” Peter, who had earlier said he would not be scandalized, now adds something more, saying that he was also prepared to die with him rather than deny him. As for Peter’s greater presumption of his own constancy, the Lord himself is thought to have added, not incongruously, something more, that is, in saying that even before the cock would crow, Peter would deny him three times, as we have said. But this raises a larger question: why Mark so arranges the denials of Peter and the crowing of the cock that after the first denial the cock crows for the first time, and after the two others, for the second time. This makes it hardly possible that, according to what the other evangelists say, Peter would deny him three times before the cock would crow, unless perhaps in their words “twice” should be understood, as Mark indicates by placing it there, as what the Lord would have said in this way. For when something is spoken of more specifically in one place than in another, it is very often necessary to assume the same emphasis also in the place from which it is absent. It should, however, be carefully noted that it is left out elsewhere, lest falsity should confuse meaning. This is not unknown even among the unbelievers. Thus we not infrequently oppose the Jews regarding the verse (Ezek. 18:8): “Thou shalt not lend at interest,” saying that they should not lend even to us. But they say it means “lend to your neighbor,” which is specified elsewhere. Also, however, when the truth of the Gospel has it (John 3:3) that “no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit” it is to be understood “or sanctified by one’s suffering for the faith.” For elsewhere we have the general statement regarding martyrs, the Lord saying (Matt. 10:39): “Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” In the third book of his On the Harmony of the Gospels, Augustine resolves the diversity concerning the denial of Peter in this way. He explains that Mark’s statement refers to the utterance of the denial, while what the others say refers to the disposition of a soul already so beset by such great fear that it would be ready to deny a third time before the cock had finished crowing. Should anyone ask why the Lord said “three times” and not “four times” or more, as Peter would likewise have been ready to do, because of his excessive fear, it seems to me that there is no small reason for having a threefold denial from whose comprehensiveness one may infer a complete denial. For everyone who denies Christ does so out of error or some kind of fear or is compelled by cupidity to presume this denial. Therefore it is insinuated that Peter, who would betray him three times as is predicted by the Lord, is capable of complete denial. It is not to be doubted from this that he had observed his actions towards the Lord, before he denied the first time, and how he would be driven with the rest into the scandal of desperation. Later, when he was liberated from this and the Lord looked upon him, he wept with bitter tears of repentance for what he had done. Perhaps it would not be absurd to say that the cock’s first crowing, after Peter’s first denial, was not natural, but rather the result of some disturbance, whether Peter’s going out in the courtyard or someone else walking around, and some cock listening and excited before the proper hour was the first to crow. Thus the first crowing may not have been normal, but brought about by some compulsion. It was not, however, unreasonable that the Lord ordained the cock’s crowing at Peter’s first denial, as if disputing with him. Nor in this way did Peter desist from his denial, so that the truth itself would become apparent. So when the Lord predicted that Peter would deny him three times, before the cock crowed, it seems that the hour of the normal cock’s crowing should be assumed. Mark, who alone inserts “twice,” takes as indifferent whether the cock’s crowing was natural or accidental.

Heloise: Problem XL Why is it that only the beasts and the birds were described (cf. Gen. 2:20) as being led to Adam in Paradise to see how he would name them, and not also the reptiles of the land, such as serpents, or the reptiles of water, such as fish?

Abelard’s Solution We think that this was well done, as far as the mystery of doctrine is concerned. Indeed, in the present Church the continent, who lift themselves powerfully by desire upward towards heavenly things, and fly on high like winged creatures, are compared to the birds. Good spouses are compared to the beasts, which touch the earth with one part of themselves, their feet, and are separated from it by another part, since they do not wallow in it with their bodies. One who is joined in matrimony is divided, in part serving God, in part intent on the world, because of the pressing needs of the married state. So it is as though they touch the earth with their feet, that is, the lower part of themselves, because they abandon themselves to earthly concerns arising from the business of matrimony, which belongs to the fallen life. Reptiles, however, which lie in the deep with their entire bodies, and are not at all able to raise themselves up. are the reprobates inwardly occupied with earthly desires, and dwelling in the depths of vice. Concerning this it is written (Prov. 18:13): “The wicked, come into the depths of sin, has contempt.” For this reason it is not permitted to offer fish as sacrifice to God. Rightly, therefore, it is said that Adam gave names only to the flying creatures and the walking animals brought to him in Paradise, and not to the reptiles, because of all the present population of the Church, in which the wheat is still mixed with the chaff, only those who are continent and the good spouses shall arrive at the true Paradise of the heavenly Fatherland, and are worthy of God’s call. Their names are already written in the Book of Life. Indeed, concerning God’s call, the Apostle says this (Rom. 8:30): “And those he predestined, he also called; and those he called, he also justified; and those he justified, he also glorified.”

Heloise: Problem XLI We ask who added at the end of the book of Deuteronomy (33:34), which is the last of the five books of Moses, that part speaking of the death of Moses and what followed. We wonder, that is, whether Moses himself also announced this in a prophetic spirit, so that this, too, could be added to his books, or whether this was added later by someone else.

Abelard’s Solution As Bede recalls in his commentary on Esdra, Esdra himself re-copied not only the Law but, according to the majority opinion, the whole canon of Sacred Scripture, which was consumed by fire, just as it seemed to him was enough for the readers, so he added this, along with many other things, to the writings of the Old Testament. In this way we also see no small number of additions even to the evangelical (Gospel) writings, made by the translators, like this one in Matthew (27:46): “Eli, Eli, lem sabachthani?” which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Similarly regarding what was written not in Hebrew but in Greek in the other evangelists, we find the 0explanation of the Hebrew words added at once. Even in Jerome’s book on Illustrious Lives, where he places himself at the end of the work, an account of his life and its ending has been added by someone else.

Heloise: Problem XLII We ask whether anyone can sin in doing what the Lord has permitted or even commanded.

Abelard’s Solution Let us agree, as is fitting, that we are confronting a most grave question, how married couples either among the people of the Old Testament or among those of the New, when they were actively moved by carnal desire, may said to sin in this respect and thus transmit original sin to their posterity. For the Lord bound the earlier people to procreation by his command and by imposing the curse of the Law upon those who left no seed in Israel. Therefore not only did he say to our first parents before their sin (Gen. 1:28): “Be fertile and multiply and fill the earth.” He also, similarly enjoined this very same command on Noah and his sons after the flood (Gen. 19:1). Concerning the curse of the Law just mentioned, by which the people were forced to beget children, there is what Jerome said against Elvidius in his work On the Perpetual Virginity of the Virgin Mary: “As long as that law remained (Exod. 23:26), ‘Increase and multiply and fill the earth,’ and ‘Cursed is the barren woman who does not bear seed in Israel,’ everyone married and became married.” This, too, was what the Blessed Augustine had to say in his book On the Good of Marriage: John’s continence was displayed in practice, but Abraham possessed it only in habit. Thus at that time when even after the days of the patriarchs the Law continued to say all those were accursed who did not produce children in Israel, even some who could have been continent, but did not demonstrate this, possessed continence none the less. Similarly Augustine wrote to Julian On Preserving Widowhood: Because I said that Ruth was blessed, but Anna more blessed, since the first married twice, while the other, soon widowed by the death of one husband lived a long time (as a widow?), you should not necessarily think that you yourself are also better than Ruth. This is because there was in the days of the prophets another kind of disposition for holy women whom obedience and sexual desire compelled to marry in order that the people of God might be propagated, from whom Christ also would be born in the flesh. Since people were obliged to propagate, the person was considered cursed by the law who did not raise up seed in Israel. For this reason even holy women were on fire, not with desire for concubinage, but with zeal for bearing children, so that they might be thought most rightly not to have sought intercourse if children could be produced in another way. Men were also permitted to have more than one living wife. Because the saintly Ruth could not have the seed then necessary in Israel, from a dead husband she sought another man from whom she could have it. As Augustine, the teacher just mentioned, recalls (On Preserving Widowhood) and to the great shame of the faithful: the Law itself provided for this people that younger brothers, even if they had children by their own wives, must contribute seed also in behalf of their older brothers. The Law compelled them to lie with their brothers’ wives and to beget sons for those who were now dead, rather than for themselves, so that the brothers who were not deprived of offspring might thus absolve their brothers from the curse of the Law. Even the Lord himself established this also as a reward for those who observed the Law so that no barren people would remain among them, either among humans or among animals. Thus it was written in Deuteronomy (7:13): “As your reward for attending to these decrees and their careful observance, the Lord will watch over you; he will love and multiply you and bless the fruit of your wombs and the produce of your soil. You will be blessed among all peoples. No one of either sex among you will be sterile, neither humans nor animals.” We read also that none of the holy patriarchs were deprived of seed, even though they might have had barren wives, whom they married not for the pleasure of carnal desire, but to increase the people, in order to beget children not so much for themselves as for God. This is the meaning of Tobias’s prayer (8:9): “Now, Lord, you know that I take this sister of mine not out of lust but only for the sake of posterity” in which “Praised be your name forever and ever.” This was Abraham’s intention when, being joined in marriage, he deserved to beget progeny from a sterile wife (Gen. 16:lff). Likewise Isaac (Gen. 25), Manoah, Samson’s father (Judges 13), Elkanah, the husband of Anna (I Kings 1:19), Zachary, the husband of Elizabeth (Luke l:5ff.). All of them gained the desired progeny, and thus did not incur the curse of the Law and the disgrace of a sterile marriage. This is why it is called “matrimony,” because it has its beginning in the mother of the family. Mindful of the malediction of the Law, Jephtha’s daughter mourned her virginity, because by dying a virgin, she left no seed in Israel (Judges 11:8) Elizabeth rejoiced in being freed of this opprobium, declaring (Luke 1:25) “So has the Lord done for me in this time when he has deigned to prevent my disgrace among men.” Mindful of all these examples, the above-mentioned doctor (Augustine) praised the intercourse of married couples that was intended to produce children, not so much simply to be begotten as to be regenerated in Christ, calling such intercourse more immune from sin than that intended to prevent fornication. This, on the other hand, the Apostle established as the sole purpose (I Cor. 7:2): “Now regarding the matters about which you wrote, ‘It is a good thing for a man not to touch a woman, but to avoid immorality every man should have his own wife, and every woman her own husband.’” Thus it seems as though conjugal intercourse should take place for God rather than for ourselves, so that our intention should be to beget children for God rather than to fulfill our own purposes. For this reason the aforementioned doctor (Augustine) ranks one intention above the other and thus does not describe as an indulgence the intercourse he separates from sin, in order not only that it should not be avoided as blameworthy, but that it should be sought out as praiseworthy. He also commends the good of marriage, so that if couples follow an appropriate intention, namely, the procreation of children, they may excuse those sexual acts that do not occur with this intention. He shows that these spouses are good in themselves rather than in the act of avoiding fornication. Therefore he says in the book cited earlier, On the Good of Marriage, that “there is a good reason to consider worthy of discussion this good, which the Lord confirmed in the Gospel (cf. John 2), not only because he forbids the dismissal of a wife, except for fornication, but because when he was invited, he came to a wedding.” Augustine goes on to say: “Marriage seems to me a good not only because of the procreation of children, but because of the natural bond between the two sexes.” Again he says: “The social bond of the married couple is so strong that, although it is tied for the purpose of procreation, it may not be broken for that reason. Thus a man would be able to cast off a sterile wife and marry another by whom he might have children, and yet he is not permitted to have them.” And similarly Augustine says: It is plain to see that God has given us some good things that should be sought for themselves, such as wisdom, health, friendship. Others he gives us because they are necessary for another reason, such as teaching, food and drink, sleep, marriage, intercourse. Of these some are necessary for the sake of wisdom, such as teaching; others for health, such as food and drink, and sleep; others for companionship, such as marriage or intercourse. From this comes the propagation of the human race, of which amicable society is the great good. Therefore anyone sins who does not use these goods that are necessary for something else not for the purpose for which they were intended. In this, some sin venially, others mortally. But whoever uses them for their intended purpose acts virtuously. Likewise he says: It seems to me that only those who cannot remain continent should marry, according to the saying of the same Apostle (1 Cor.7:9): ‘If they cannot be continent, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn.’ Nevertheless, this does not mean that there is no sin involved in marriages intended to prevent fornication. There may be lesser sin than fornication, yet some sin nonetheless. But now, how shall we respond to the very forceful voice of the Apostle, when he says (I Cor. 7:36): ‘Let him do as he wishes. He is committing no Sin; let them get married;’ and (7:28) ‘If you. marry, however, you do not sin, nor does an unmarried woman sin if she marries’. Here, certainly, it is no longer right to doubt that marriage is not a sin. Nor, therefore, does the Apostle allow marriage as an indulgence. For who would equivocate so absurdly as to say that those have not sinned to whom indulgence is granted. But what the Apostle concedes as an indulgence is the intercourse that happens through incontinence, not solely for the sake of procreation, and to some extent with no intention of procreation. The marital state does not require this act to take place, but it does ask that it be overlooked, if the acts are not so frequent that they intrude on; the times that should be set apart for prayer. Nor should married couples debase themselves by that practice which is against nature. The Apostle could not be silent about this since he was discussing the extremely corrupt practices of impure and impious persons. Intercourse that necessarily leads to procreation is not blameworthy, and that alone is marital. What exceeds that which is necessary is no longer reasonable but libidinal. Yet not to demand this act, but to allow it to a spouse to avoid his sinning mortally through fornication is a marital obligation. If, however, both are subject to such concupiscence, they are engaged in an act that is plainly not marital. But if in their marriage they prefer more that is honorable than dishonorable, meaning what belongs rather than does not belong to marriage, the Apostle concedes this to them as an indulgence. Again, Augustine writes: That natural act, when it falls outside the purpose of marriage, that is, beyond the needs of procreation, is venial in a wife, but to be condemned in a prostitute. What is contrary to nature is execrable in a prostitute, but more execrable in a wife. For what the Creator ordains and the order to which the creature belongs have such great worth that in matters pertaining to concessions in use, even when the manner is exceeded, it is more tolerable than in those matters which have not been permitted, whether the excess is singular or seldom. Thus in a matter where there is a concession, immoderation is tolerable in a spouse in order to prevent libidinous acts of an unlawful kind. For this reason a husband sins far less, no matter how demanding of his wife he is, than one who is very seldom a fornicator. When a man wishes to use a woman’s member in a forbidden manner, the wife is more sinful if she permits this act in relation to herself than to another woman. Therefore, the conjugal right is chastity in procreation and fidelity in paying the conjugal debt, that is, the work of marriage, which the Apostle defends against all incrimination, saying (I Cor. 7:28): ‘If you marry, however, you do not sin, nor does an unmarried woman if she marries’ and (7:36): ‘Let him do as he wishes. He is committing no sin; let them get married.’ However, for the reasons we mentioned above, the more immoderate exacting of marital debts by members of either sex is conceded to spouses as a venial indulgence. Therefore the Apostle’s statement (7:34): ‘An unmarried woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, so that she may be holy in both body and spirit,’ must not be interpreted in such a way that we should regard a chaste Christian woman as not holy in body. Indeed, it was said to all the faithful (6:19): ‘Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?’ Holy as well are the bodies of spouses who keep faith with one another and the Lord. The same Apostle testifies that an unbelieving spouse is no obstacle to either partner, but rather that the wife’s holiness benefits the unbelieving husband, as the husband’s holiness benefits the unbelieving wife. As the Apostle says (7:14), ‘For the unbelieving husband is made holy through his believing wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy through the believing husband.’ This was followed by the statement regarding the greater sanctity of unmarried than of married women. Augustine writes further: The bond of marriage remains, even if, because of manifest sterility, there are no children for whom the marriage was undertaken. Thus it is not permitted for married couples who already know that they will have no children to separate from each other to have intercourse with others for the sake of having children. If they do so, they commit adultery with those with whom they have intercourse, but they themselves remain married. Clearly, it was permitted in law and practice among our ancient forefathers to take another woman with the wife’s permission, so that common children should be born of the intercourse of the one and the seed of the other. Whether this is now permitted I hesitate to say. For there is no longer the need for propagation that prevailed then, when it was permitted to spouses who could have children to take another wife in addition, to gain a more abundant progeny, which is certainly not permitted now. Again Augustine writes: What food is to the health of human kind, intercourse is to the health of the race, and neither lacks carnal pleasure. This cannot be mere desire when it is limited and controlled by a moderating temperance in its natural use. But what forbidden food is in the sustaining of life, fornication or adulterous intercourse is in seeking offspring, and what forbidden food is in the pampering of stomach and throat, illicit intercourse is in the luxuriating of sexual desire that seeks no offspring. And what a not uncommon, immoderate appetite is regarding permitted food, the venial intercourse is between a married couple. So just as it is better to die of hunger that to eat food consecrated to idols, it is better to die without children than to seek them by means of illicit intercourse. By whatever means they are produced, however, individuals should be born, and if they do not follow the vices of their parents, and worship God properly, they are honest and will be saved. The seed of manhood coming from whatever kind of man is God’s creature, and it will fare badly at the hands of those who treat it badly, although the seed itself will not be at all evil. But just as the good children of adulterers do not justify adultery, so the bad children of a married couple do not incriminate marriage. Again, Augustine says above: There are men who are so incontinent that they do not spare their pregnant wives. So whatever married couples do between themselves, shameful or sordid, is the vice of the couple and not to be blamed on marriage. Now also that more immoderate exaction of the marital debt is not commanded but conceded by the Apostle as an indulgence, so that the couple might join together, even if depraved habits impel them to such intercourse. Nevertheless, the fact of their marriage is their defense against adultery or fornication. For it is not that this is actively allowed because of marriage, but it is because of marriage that this is overlooked. So married couples owe each other not only fidelity in the sharing of their sexuality in order to beget children, which is the primary relationship of humanity in this mortal life. They also owe one another in a certain measure the mutual service of supporting each other against the weakness that leads to illicit intercourse, so that even if one of the partners should be drawn to perpetual continence, this is not possible without the consent of the other. For this reason, then, the wife does not have power over her own body, but the man does; likewise the man does not have power over his body, but his wife does. Therefore they should not deny to one another what the man seeks from marriage, nor what the wife seeks from the husband, not in order to have children, but because of weakness and incontinence. In this way they should not succumb to damnable corruptions, with Satan tempting either or both of them to incontinence. For marital intercourse for the purpose of procreation is blameless. As Augustine says: “Fulfilling the marital debt incurs no blame, but to exact it beyond the necessity of procreation is a venial sin.” Augustine says the same to his friend, Valerian, in the first book of On Marriage and Concupiscence: But who would dare to say that the gift of God is a sin? The soul and the body and all the goods of soul and body, even when given naturally to sinners, are gifts of God, because God, not they themselves, made these gifts. Concerning their actions it is said (Rom. 14-23): ‘Whatever is not from faith is sinful.’ So no one could be called truly modest who should not for the sake of the true God preserve marital fidelity to his wife. Therefore the intercourse of husband and wife with the intention of procreation is a natural good of marriage. But anyone uses this good wrongly if he is disposed to passionate pleasure rather than toward the will to procreation. In this intention of the heart, he who possesses his vessel, that is, his wife, beyond doubt does not possess her in the disease of desire, like those who are ignorant of God, but in sanctification and honor, like the faithful who hope in God. Indeed, a man who makes use of this evil of concupiscence is not vanquished whenever he confounds it or restrains and limits its agitation of indecorous movements. Nor, unless he is thinking about progeny, does he relax and summon it so that he might beget in the flesh those who are to be reborn in the spirit, not so that he might enslave the spirit in the sordid servitude of the flesh. Similarly Augustine writes in On the Marriage of Joseph and Mary: Every marital good is realized in these parents of Christ: progeny, fidelity, and sacrament. We recognize the progeny in the Lord Jesus himself; the fidelity because there was no adultery; the sacrament, because there was no divorce. Only the nuptial intercourse was lacking, because in sinful flesh it could not have occurred without that concupiscence of the flesh that was the result of sin. He who would be without sin wished to be conceived without sin, not in sinful flesh, so that even in this he might teach everyone that what is born of copulation is sinful flesh, since only that flesh which was not born of it was not sinful. Nevertheless, marital intercourse that happens with the intention of procreation is not itself a sin, since the good intention of the soul produces the consequences. Nor does the body submit to the attraction of pleasure; nor is the human will subjected to the dominance of sin, since the wound of sin is justly diminished by the intention of procreation. Likewise, concerning what the Apostle says (I Cor. 7:6): ‘I say this by way of concession, however, not as a command.’ Augustine continues in the same book, On the Marriage of Joseph and Mary: Wherever an indulgence is given, it is undeniable that there is some sinfulness. So since the intercourse properly permitted to marriage is not culpable when its purpose is procreation, what does the Apostle concede as an indulgence, but that the marriage partners, when they are not continent, seek the debt of the flesh not with the purpose of procreation, but with the desire for pleasure? Enjoyed within marriage, however, this pleasure does not fall into sin, but for the sake of marriage it enjoys an indulgence. For this reason, even here marriage is praiseworthy, because even what does not belong to it is caused to be overlooked for the sake of marriage. Therefore, this intercourse by which one is enslaved to concupiscence should not be performed so as to impede the fetus that is the purpose of marriage. Nonetheless, it is not blameless to copulate except with the intention of procreation; it is, however, a venial sin that feeds the desire of the flesh, but not at the wish of one’s spouse. Again, in the second book [of On the Marriage of Joseph and Mary] , Augustine writes: We do not condemn bread and wine on account of gluttons or drunkards, or gold because of the greedy and avaricious. Similarly, we also do not condemn the union of honest spouses because of the shameful passion of their bodies. For when there was no preceding commission of sin, the first couple might possibly not have been embarrassed. But when the passion was aroused after the original sin, then they were confounded by shame and forced to hide it. Thus it remained for the couples who came after them, even if they were performing this bad act well and lawfully, to avoid human sight and so to confess that it was shameful, since no one should cast shame on what is good.

Thus two things are indicated: both the good of laudable unions by which children are begotten and the evil of shameful passion from which those begotten need to be reborn so that they should not be damned. So those who lie together lawfully use a shameful act well, while those who have illicit intercourse use a bad act badly. More properly then, does it receive the name of a bad thing than a good one, because it makes those blush who are good as well as bad. We put more faith in the person who says (Rom. 7:18): ‘I know that no good lies in me, that is, in my flesh. The person who calls the flesh good confesses that it is bad when he is shamed by it; if he is not embarrassed, however, he adds immodesty, which is worse. We say rightly, therefore, that the good of marriage cannot be charged with the original evil that is carried with it, just as the evil of adultery cannot be excused by the natural good that is born of it. For human nature that is born of either marriage or adultery is the work of God. If it were evil in itself, it would not be begotten; if it did not possess evil, regeneration would not be necessary.

Original letter:

Beatus Hieronymus sanctae Marcellae studium quo tota fervebat, circa quaestiones sacrarum litterarum maxime commendans, ac vehementer approbans, quantis eam super hoc praeconiis laudum extulerit, vestra melius prudentia, quam mea simplicitas novit. De qua, quum in epistolam Pauli ad Galatas commentarios scriberet, ita in primo meminit libro: "Scio quidem ardorem ejus, scio fidem, quam flammam habeat in pectore, superare sexum, oblivisci homines et divinorum voluminum tympano concrepare, Rubrum hoc saeculi pelagus transfretare. Certe quum Romae essem, nunquam tam festina me vidit, ut de Scripturis aliquid interrogaret. neque vero, more pythagorico, quidquid responderem rectum putabat, nec sine ratione praejudicata apud eam valebat auctoritas; sed examinabat omnia, et sagaci mente universa pensabat, ut me sentirem non tam discipulam habere quam judicem." Ex quo utique studio in tantum eam profecisse noverat, ut ipsam caeteris eodem studio discendi ferventibus magistram praeponeret. Unde et ad Principiam virginem scribens, inter caetera sic meminit documenta: "Habes ibi in studio Scripturarum et in sanctimonia mentis et corporis Marcellam et Asellam; quarum altera te per prata virentia et varios divinorum voluminum flores ducat ad eum, qui dicit in cantico: "Ego flos campi, et lilium convallium" [Cant.2:1]; altera ipsa flos Domini tecum mereatur audire: "Ut lilium in medio spinarum, sic proxima mea in medio filiarum" [Cant.2:2]. Quorsum autem ista, dilecte multis, sed dilectissime nobis? Non sunt haec documenta, sed monita: ut ex his quid debeas recorderis, et debitum solvere non pigriteris. Ancillas Christi, ac spiritales filias tuas in oratorio proprio congregasti, ac divino mancipasti obsequio; divinis nos intendere verbis, ac sacris lectionibus operam dare, plurimum semper exhortari consuevisti. Quibus saepius in tantum scripturae sacrae doctrinam commendasti, ut eam animae speculum dicens, quo decor ejus vel deformitas cognoscatur, nullam Christi sponsam hoc carere speculo permittebas, si ei cui se dovoverit, placere studuerit. Addebas insuper ad exhortationem nostram, ipsam Scripturae lectionem non intellectam, esse quasi speculum oculis non videntis appositum. Quibus quidem monitis tam ego quam sorores nostrae plurimum incitatae, tuam in hoc quoque quoad possumus implentes obedientiam, dum huic operam studio damus, eo videlicet amore litterarum correptae, de quo praedictus doctor quodam loco meminit: "Ama scientiam Scripturarum, et carnis vitia non amabis" [ep.95], multis quaestionibus perturbatae, pigriores efficimur in lectione; et quod in sacris verbis magis ignoramus, minus diligere cogimur, dum infructuosum laborem sentimus, cui operam damus. Proinde quaestiunculas quasdam discipulae doctori, filiae patri destinantes, supplicando rogamus, rogando supplicamus, quatenus his solvendis intendere non dedigneris, cujus hortatu, immo et jussu, hoc praecipue studium aggressae sumus. In quibus profecto quaestionibus, nequaquam ordinem Scripturae tenentes, prout quotidie nobis occurrunt, eas ponimus et solvendas dirigimus.

Historical context:

The letter introduces 42 questions (the "Problemata") that have arisen from the daily biblical readings Heloise and her nuns do. The questions involve issues of sin and judgment, intention versus action, law and punishment, damnation and repentance, as well as contradictions or odd references in the Bible. Heloise does not hesitate to draw an analogy between herself and Marcella, Jerome’s celebrated and very learned colleague and correspondent. Abelard's solutions to the questions Heloise asks are included.

Printed source:

Opera Petri Abaelardi ed. V. Cousin, 2v (Paris: A Durand, 1849, 1859), Problemata, 1.237-294; also in PL178 c.678 ff. Translation from The Letters of Heloise and Abelard:  A Translation of Their Collected Correspondence and Related Wrtings, trans. Mary Martin McLaughlin, ed. Bonnie Wheeler , The New Middle Ages (New York:  Springer Nature, 2014) with the generous permission of the translator and the editor.