Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/177

Rh fusing are due to the presence in the writer's mind of an idea of a supreme Unity surpassing human thought or speech, a Unity which forbade the coëxistence of multiplicity. He could only apply the analogy of his own realistic philosophy and infer, or lead his readers to infer, that as humanity was a single essence by participation in which individual men were said to exist, so did the three Persons subsist, as individuals, by participation in the one absolute God.

On whichever side of Gilbert's theology we dwell, however innocent the one, however obscure the other, we cannot wonder that it startled many of his more timid or pious hearers, accustomed as they were to the definition and classification of the divine attributes authorised in the formularies of the church. The bishop appears to have been drawn into a discussion with Arnald, one of his archdeacons, and then into a formal exposition of his views before the assembled clergy of his diocese. It is admitted by John of Salisbury, – and the former part of the statement will not be denied by anyone who has read the commentary on Boëthius, – that Gilbert was obscure to beginners but all the more compendious and solid to advanced scholars. To the synod the doctrine was new, and therefore dangerous; and the alarmed archdeacons hastened to report their fears, the bishop to defend his orthodoxy, to the pope Eugenius the Third. The latter was at Siena, about to visit France, and gave them a promise that he would submit the points in dispute to an ample examination on his arrival in that country because by reason of the learned men there resident, he would be the better enabled to make the enquiry than in Italy. In the meanwhile the complainants secured a more formidable champion in the person of Bernard of Clairvaux. An unprejudiced contemporary, himself certainly no heretic, has passed a remarkable judgement upon the saint in connexion with his action in this affair. The aforesaid abbat, says the biographer of Frederick Barbarossa, bishop Otto of Freising, was from the fervour of his Christian

k Gaufr. Claraevall. epist. ad Henr., ii. Bern. opp. 2. 1319 D. l Hist. pontif. xii. p. 526. m Otto de gest. Frid. i. 46, Pertz 20. 376; Gautr. ep., l. c. n Otto, l. c. o ibid., cap. 47 p. 376.

A.D. 1146.