Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/96

78 was engaged, and his thoughts no more than his actions were disquieted by any considerations of religion. From a teacher Gerbert became a politician. We discern his character in the arts by which he obtained the archbishoprick of Rheims. Full of resource, unscrupulous in intrigue, he had the shrewdness, the practical sagacity, of a man of the world: moral difficulties were no difficulties to him. His record lies not in a fancied inauguration of the crusades (this was to all appearance but the hasty conclusion from a letter in which he laments the spoliation of the holy city, drawn by those who knew the potency of such an appeal a century later ); but in the imperial projects which he impressed on the boy Otto the Third and whereby he hoped to restore to Rome her ancient glory. Gerbert the magician is an imagination of later growth, but the currency of the fable bears witness to the uniqueness of his position. A scholar who did not concern himself with the higher questions of faith and thought could only, it appeared, be susceptible of influences of an opposite and infernal origin.