126 ABAILARD'S MARRIAGE.
a Hist. calam. vii. p 14. b Rémusat 1. 63. c Hist. calam. vii, viii, p. 16.
were free to take wives so long as they were not in charge of a parish. He appealed to the established usage of the Greek church, to the exceptional privileges granted the newly converted English by Gregory the Great, in proof that celibacy was a law of expediency (and thus less or more restricted at different times and places), not one of universal obligation. Accordingly we do not find that either he or any one else objected to his marriage on this ground: it is certain that he was in orders, because he was a canon; but it does not appear that he was as yet even a subdeacon. When [1]Heloïssa argued against the proposal and urged the examples of gentile philosophers who remained unmarried in the interest of their labours, unbound as they were by any profession of religion, and concluded, What does it become thee to do who art clerk and canon? — the reasoning is simply that if marriage be an impediment to a philosopher's labours, how much more must it affect one with a religious obligation; but there is no hint of any further obstacle. Doubtless Abailard injured his position by his action; possibly [2] he might be conceived to be thereby disqualified from the functions of a theological teacher: but more it would be improper to assert. If there was any prejudice raised against him on this account it was quickly silenced when Fulbert, his wife's uncle, revenged himself with savage violence upon the invader of his home. [3] Fulbert, the
- ↑ a
- ↑ b
- ↑ c
are notes taken by a disciple from his lectures, and that they may be used with comparative confidence: see Rheinwald's preface, pp. xxvi-xxviii; Rémusat 2. 188, 243 sq.; Hefele, Concilien-geschichte 5. 410 n., 419 (1863); Deutsch 453-456. [This opinion has been decisively overthrown by Denifle, who has for the first time elicited the real meaning of Sententiae from a comparison of four contemporaneous collections: see the Archiv für Litteratur- und Kirchen-Geschichte des Mittelalters, 1. 402-469, 584-624; Berlin 1885.] In the passage referred to in the text it is evident that the manuscript, which is all through a very bad one, is seriously corrupt. The words are, 'Utrum clerici matrimonium contrahere possint, quaeri solet. Sacerdotes qui non fecerunt, possunt. Rémusat, vol. 2. 249 n. 2, is disposed to understand vota with fecerunt; but the passage goes on to forbid marriage to any order above that of acolyte. Should we read fiunt instead of fecerunt? — Those who do not become priests, may marry.
