A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

hildegard, the schools, and their critics 117
have been written shortly after the council, during which Odo had heard
reports of Hildegard and resolved to get her opinion of the council’s decision.
Yet in Odo’s letter there is no essential connection to the council.
He does not mention Gilbert’s name, nor does he suggest that he has a
particular individual’s doctrine in mind, but rather states that “a large
number of people” support the proposition. This idea is found as early
as 1136, and it may not have been Gilbert’s invention at all.36 Further, as
the research of Nikolaus Häring has shown, support for Gilbert’s position
did not immediately end after the council, despite his promise of emendation.37
One of Gilbert’s disciples, in fact, spent 30 years visiting libraries
all over the world trying to fijind some authoritative patristic source for the
quicquid in Deo dictum used to condemn him at Reims.38 One of the most
prominent of the anti-Gilbertine polemics was written by Geofffrey of Auxerre
after Gilbert’s death in 1154.39 Another polemic against Gilbert’s position
was written by Clarembald of Arras (d. c.1187), certainly after Reims
and probably in the 1150s.40 After 1185, the former disciple of Gilbert, the
Cistercian Everard of Ypres, wrote to Pope Urban III: “At Paris and elsewhere,
. . . some people say, ‘Paternity is God’; others say, ‘Paternity is not
God.’”41 While the Gilbertine Everard prefers the latter position, he wants
Van Acker, however, left open the possibility of a later date; see his table in Epistolarium,
III, p. 222.
36 The doctrine can be found in the Sententiae varsavienses, written before 1136 and
edited by Friedrich Stegmüller, “Sententiae varsavienses. Ein neugefundenes Sentenzenwerk
unter dem Einfluss des Anselm von Laon und des Peter Abaelard,” Divus Thomas 45
(1942): 335–37. Stegmüller argues that the text refers to the doctrines of Gilbertus Universalis,
who was accused by Abelard of holding a similar position. See David Luscombe, The
School of Peter Abelard: The Influence of Abelard’s Thought in the Early Scholastic Period
(Cambridge, 1969), pp. 179–80.
37 On the difffijicult question as to whether Gilbert ever even actually said this in the fijirst
place, see Nikolaus Häring, “The Case of Gilbert de la Porrée Bishop of Poitiers (1142–1154),”
Mediaeval Studies 13 (1951): 12–16.
38 This was Adhemar of St-Ruf, and the story is narrated in the Liber de vera philosophia
(partial edition by Paul Fournier, “Un adversaire inconnu de saint Bernard et de Pierre
Lombard. Notice sur un manuscrit provenant de la Grande-Chartreuse,” Bibliothèque de
l’École des chartes 47 [1886], 394–417); see also Nikolaus Häring, “In Search of Adhemar’s
Patristic Collection,” Mediaeval Studies 28 (1966): 336–46.
39 For Geofffrey’s Libellus, see John of Salisbury, Historia Pontifijicalis, ed. Reginald Poole
(Oxford, 1927), p. 11; with Nikolaus Häring, “Notes on the Council and Consistory of Rheims
(1148),” Medieval Studies 28 (1966): 51–52.
40 This is the Altercatio inter Clarenbaldum et magistrum Gislebertum, ed. Nikolaus
Häring, “Texts Concerning Gilbert of Poitiers,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du
moyen âge 37 (1970): 169–203.
41 Everard of Ypres, Epistola ad Urbanum papam III, ed. Jean Leclercq, “Textes sur
Saint Bernard et Gilbert de la Porrée,” Mediaeval Studies 14 (1952): 114–15: “Parisius et
alibi . . . inquiunt quidam: ‘Paternitas est Deus,’ alii: ‘Paternitas non est Deus.’” On Everard’s