Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/159

Rh the former he insists with greater emphasis upon the importance to be attached to authority than he does in the latter. Only in one point does his later treatment appear to differ seriously from his earlier; and that is where he depreciates the virtue of belief before understanding. The change of opinion connects itself here also naturally with the change in his opponents: he had now to deal with theologians who accepted in the most literal sense the dictum of saint Anselm, Credo ut intelligam.

We can however only surmise the reason which prompted Abailard, probably in 1137, to give up his lectures on Saint Geneviève. Perhaps he exaggerated the danger, it is even possible that some purely private consideration decided the step; at all events he soon returned. In 1139 he was again there, no doubt actively engaged in his old employment, when Arnold of Brescia, formerly, it is said, his scholar, now a fugitive from Italy, attached himself to him as his staunch ally and companion. After Abailard for the last time quitted the place under the circumstances to which we shall immediately turn, Arnold remained his successor on the hill until he too was forced to leave France and take refuge at Zurich. Arnold's adhesion, however loyal, perhaps did harm rather than good. Abailard had no doubt given offence by exposing the morals of the clergy and attacking certain abuses of ecclesiastical discipline which subserved the interests of the order rather than of society at large: but his disciple went infinitely