Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 01.djvu/57

ABEL. came chamber musician to Queen Charlotte, he also won considerable distinction as a composer.

ABEL, HI)?], Niels Henrik (1802'2n). One of the most brilliant mathematicians of the first part of the nineteenth century. He was born at Findö, Norway. After a course of study at the University of (hristiania. he spent two years in Paris and Berlin, and in 1S2T was made in- structor at the university and at the school of enfrineerinj; in Christiania. lie wa.s the first to demonstrate with rigor the impossibility of solving by the elementary processes of algebra general equations of any degree higher than the fourth. His chief contributions were made to the theory of functions, of which he was one of the founders. An important class of elliptic functions (see Functions) are known as Abelian. from their discoverer. There are also Abelian groups and bodies. The Binomial Theorem (q.v. ), proved by Newton and Euler, received at the hands of Alicl a wider generaliza- tion, including the cases of irrational and im- aginary exponents. Abel's works, in two volumes, were published by the Norwegian Government (Christiania, first edition, 1839; second edition, 1881).

ABELARD (Engl, ab'f-ljird; Fr. d'bfl'lar'), Pierre (1079-1142). A scholastic philosopher and theologian, the boldest thinker of the twelfth century. His name is commoidy given in the French form, Abélard or Abailard; in Latin, Abai- lardus or Bajolardus. But these are epithets of uncertain meaning, the latter form perhaps from bajulus, "teacher," the former from abeille, a bee. He had properly the single name Peter, Petrus, to which was added de Palais, from the place of his birth, Le Pallet, or in Latin form Palatinus, a village eight miles southeast of Nantes, Brittany, western France. He was born in 1079. His father was the knight Berengar, lord of the village; his mother was Lucia, and they both later on entered monastic orders. An irrepressible thirst for knowledge and a special pleasure in scholastic logic moved Abélard to resign his rights of primogeniture in favor of his younger brothers. His first teacher was Ros- cellin, the Nominalist, during the latter's stay at Vannes. He wandered about in search of knowledge until he arrived in Paris, where he became a pupil of William of Champeaux, the Realist. the head of the cathedral school of Notre Dame there, but soon incurred the hatred of his master, whom he puzzled by his wonderful subtle- ty. He fled to Melun, where he started a school of his own, and afterward to Corbeil, admired, yet persecuted, wherever he went. He then returned home for the restoration of his health. With renewed strength, he returned to Paris, reconciled himself with his opponents, and molded, by his influence as a lecturer, some of the most distinguished men of his age, among whom were the future Pope Celestine II., Peter Lombard, Berengar, his future apologist, and Arnold of Brescia.

At this time, however, there also lived in Paris with her uncle, the canon Fulbert, Héloïse, the eighteen-year-old natural daughter of a certain canon John, of Paris, already remarkable for her beauty, talents, and attainments. At Fulbert's invitation Abélard made his home with him and instructed Héloïse. She soon kindled in the breast of Abélard, then thirty-eight years old, a violent and overwhelming passion, which was returned by Héloïse with no less fervor. The lovers were happy together until Abélard's ardent poetical effusions reached the ears of the canon. He sought to separate the lovers; but it was too late. They fled together to Abélard's home, where, in his sister Dionysia's house, Héloïse gave birth to a son, and was privately married to Abélard with the consent of her uncle. Not long after, Héloïse returned to Fulbert's house, and denied the marriage, that her love might be no hindrance to Abélard's advancement in the Church. Enraged at this, and at a second flight which she took with Abélard to the Benedictine nunnery at Argenteuil, where she had been educated, a flight which Fulbert interpreted as showing Abélard's desire to rid himself of his wife. Fulbert, in order to make him canonically incapable of ecclesiastical preferment, caused Abélard to be emasculated. In deep humiliation Abélard entered as a monk the abbey of St. Denis, in Paris, and induced Héloïse to take the veil at Argenteuil.

But the lectures which he began to give soon after exposed him to new persecutions. The synod of Soissons (1121) declared his opinions on the Trinity to be heretical. In punishment he had to throw the offending treatise into the fire, to read publicly the Athanasian Creed, and to endure a brief imprisonment. The charge seems to have been that he declared Cod the Father alone omnipotent. But what cost him more was his declaration that St. Dionysius, the patron saint of France, had been bishop of Corinth, and not of Athens, for this stirred up court opposi- tion. He fled from St. Denis to the monastery of St. Aigulph, near Provins, but was brought back and compelled to retract his opinions concerning St. Dionysius. He was then allowed to go, and went to Nogent-sur-Seine, and there built of reeds and rushes a little chapel to the Trinity, and later, on account of the press of hearers, who planted their huts about him. a structure of wood and stone, which he called the Paraclete, the ruins of which exist to this day. But as everything he did caused adverse criticism, so the name that he gave the building — because it brought into unusual prominence the Holy Spirit — involved him in fresh trouble, and he left the Paraclete and accepted the abbotship of St. Gildas de Rhuys, on the coast of Lower Brit- tany. It was a sore trial for him to contend with the Tinruly monks. Meanwhile, the eon- vent at Argenteuil, where Hfloise was prioress, had been broken up. Ab^'lard transferred H^lolse and her nuns to the Paraclete and made her abbess of the nunnery he established. It was a long distance from St. Cildas. but, as spiritual director, he frequently went thither. Naturally, he fell under suspicion of renewing his intimacy with H^'lolse, and so the lovers finally restricted, themselves to writing. The correspondence has been preserved. On his part it was sternly re- pressive, to the point of coldness; on her part the heart expressed its love, which was an inex- tinguishable passion, both of body and soul, and tyrannical in its demands upon the monk who had ceased to share it.

After ten more years, Abélard, fearing an attack upon his life, left his monks and became a wandering teacher again. Two men, Norbert and the much more famous Bernard of Clairvaux, were always on his track. The Council of Sens, held in 1141, under the influence of Ber-