A.D. 381 heretics, pagans, and the dawn of the monotheistic state ( PDFDrive )

was the most prestigious - teachers would compete with each other for the best
posts, and Abelard, who revelled in debate, became famous for the victories he
effected over rival teachers. His primary interest was in logic, but after his
separation from Heloise, he retreated to the monastic house at St Denis, where
he developed his interest in theology. 3
The issue that fascinated him was the Trinity. How could there be three divine
persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, distinct from each other, each fully God,
but without there being three gods? Could he produce a formula that would
provide backing for the doctrine? It was a challenging task. As Michael Clanchy,
author of a fine biography of Abelard, puts it: ‘The perfect analogy for the
Trinity seemed to be on the verge of discovery, rather like the discovery of a new
drug in modern science, and then the most fundamental problem of Christian
theology and belief would have been solved. The successful discoverer would
achieve the reputation of a Father of the Church, like St Augustine. If the
analogy failed, on the other hand, the discoverer might be condemned as a
heretic and imprisoned or killed. The stakes were therefore high and Abelard, as
the highest player of his time, gambled against his soul to solve the mystery of
the Trinity.’ 4
Abelard’s first efforts at solving the problem, the Theologia, were condemned
and ordered to be burned in 1121. The reasons remain obscure but seem to have
included the accusation that he taught that there were three gods (tritheism). It
appears that the underlying philosophical problems of the Nicene Trinity were
exposed as soon as an educated mind set to work on them. The doctrine was so
carefully balanced between Sabellianism - Jesus as a temporary manifestation of
God - and tritheism that any new view of the problem risked being accused of
one or the other. But this did not deter Abelard. He caught the mood of the new
breed of students, who wanted a defence of the Trinity based on ‘human and
logical reasons... something intelligible rather than mere words’. He became
obsessed with finding a way in which a coherent defence of the doctrine could
be made, and in his later works his arguments became ever more complex. He
developed a sophisticated analysis of what was meant by the ‘sameness’ - as in
‘the same substance’, or, a word he was fond of using, ‘essence’ - of the three
divine persons, and their ‘difference’. He conceived of a ‘difference in
definition’ or ‘a difference in property’, which, he argued, each of the three
persons could hold without compromising their sameness. ‘Although God the
Father is entirely the same essence as God the Son or God the Holy Spirit, there