Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/202

184 ''private estate, the instance of my companions, and the counsel of my friends, that I should undertake the office of a teacher. I obeyed: and thus returning at the expiration of three years, I found master Gilbert and heard him in logic and divinity; but too quickly was he removed.'' Gilbert left Paris, as we have seen, when he was elected in 1142 to the bishoprick of Poitiers. His successor, proceeds John, ''was Robert Pullus, whom his life and knowledge alike recommended. Then I had Simon of Poissy, a trusty lecturer, but dull in disputation. But these two I had in theologies alone. Thus, engaged in diverse studies near twelve years passed by me.''

No doubt the reason why John adverts so perfunctorily to his theological studies is that the entire narrative upon which we have hitherto commented is inserted in the middle of a dialectical disquisition. Dialectics furnish its motive, and beyond them John does not think fit to pursue his story. Gilbert of La Porrée he heard in dialectics as well as theology: then he attended Robert and Simon; but these, he explains, as though to excuse his not continuing a digression from his principal subject, I heard in theologies alone. Nor can we allow ourselves to be detained by an enquiry as to the influence which these masters had upon him. The character, the transcendental character, we should say, of Gilbert's theological system has been already sufficiently discussed; but John was his pupil but for a short time. Robert Pullen also (if this is to be preferred of the many forms in which his name is written) did not remain long at Paris; and of Simon of Poissy we know next to nothing. Robert, who became a cardinal and chancellor of the Roman church, was held by his contemporaries in singular honour as a theologian, although it has been suspected that his famous Sum of Theology borrowed something more than its method