have readied the goal in unravelling the old
questions, nor had they added one jot of a proposition. The
aims that once inspired them, inspired them still : they only
had progressed in one point, they had unlearned moderation,
they knew not modesty ; in such wise that one might despair
of their recovery. And thus experience taught me a manifest
conclusion, that, whereas dialectic furthers other studies, so
if it remain by itself it lies bloodless and barren, nor does it
quicken the soul to yield fruit of philosophy, except the same
conceive from elsewhere.
Such on John’s final judgement on the ruling passion of his time : he felt that he had outgrown logic when he w advanced to the study of theology. Still throughout his life, though he esteemed theology as the noblest subject on which the mind could exercise itself, his sympathies ran even more strongly to yet another branch of learning, the study of the classics. The external events of his career hardly concern us, and may be briefly summarised. On the completion of his theological course he spent some time with his friend Peter, abbat of the Cistercian monastery of Moustier la Celle near Troyes, and after wards his own successor in the see of Chartres.[1] Here in 1148 he had the opportunity of witnessing that council at Rheims in which saint Bernard failed to silence Gilbert of La Porree, and of which we have John’s record. pointed with characteristic shrewd criticism. Here too he must have been admitted to friendly intercourse with the redoubtable abbat of Clairvaux, who e afterwards recommended him to the notice and favour of archbishop Theo bald of Canterbury.[2] The latter had also been present
- ↑ We need not suppose with Dr. Schaarschmidt, p. 25, that Peter was John s junior. He certainly survived the latter by seven years, but John died at no great age, and Peter as bishop of Chartres is described as old and infirm.
- ↑ Mabillon, in loc., dates the letter 1144; but Bernard says, Praesens vobis commendaveram eum,’ and now that we know of an occasion on which the three were together, namely, at Rheims in the spring of 1148, it is needless to conjecture any other. The letter however cannot have been written very long after the council, since John in the autumn of 1159 speaks of having been nearly twelve years, ’annis fere duodecim, occupied in
