would you be looking, not upon forms and elements, but upon divinity itself, as it really is, as upon truth—­eye to eye, without labor of reading, without tediousness of seeing, without fallacies and mistakes of understanding, without anxiety of retaining, without fear of forgetting.  O blessed school, where Christ teaches our hearts with the words of his virtue, where without study and lecture we learn how we should live happily to eternity!  There no book is bought, no teacher of things written is hired, there is no circumventing in debate, no intricacy of sophisms, [but] a plain settlement of all questions, a full apprehension of universal reasons and arguments.  There life avails more than lecture; simplicity, more than cavilling.  There no one is shut in [i.e., limited in freedom] save he who is shut out.  In a word; there every reproach is done away with in the answer given to him who evilly presents an evil life:  “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels;” and to him who sets for a good life:  “Come, ye blessed” &c.

Would that the sons of men were as intent upon these better studies as they are on idle talking, on vain and base buffoonery!  Certainly they would harvest richer fruits, more excellent favors, certainly greater honors and beyond doubt would learn the end of all perfection,—­Christ,—­whom they will never find in these.  Farewell.[78]

(c) Letters from or to Students at Paris

These letters belong to a period covering nearly four centuries.  The first gives an opinion of William of Champeaux in marked contrast to that of Abelard.

(1) A CERTAIN D. WRITES TO A CERTAIN PRIOR CONCERNING HIS STUDIES AT PARIS. (1109-1112.)

I am now in Paris in the School of Master William of Champeaux, the greatest of all the men of his time whom I have known, in every branch of learning.  When we hear his voice we think that no man, but, as it were, an angel from heaven, is speaking; for the melody of his words and the profundity of his ideas transcends, as it were, human limitations....

Here, my revered friend, I am training my youth that I may not utterly succumb to those vices which, unless conquered, are wont, as a rule, to overturn this period of life.  Here I am doing my best to illumine by doctrine and study my untaught mind, emancipated from the shades of ignorance and the sin of the first man, so far as God, from whom alone comes every blessing of wisdom, shall himself deign to permit.  Because the blessing of wisdom, when sought and acquired with pure interest, is rightly believed and considered by all men of discernment as the surmnuni [bonum].  For, as the Apostle says:  Knowledge without charity puffeth up but, with charity edifieth:  for it uproots vices and grafts in virtues; it instructs itself in its duty to itself, its neighbor, and its Creator; finally, by its presence, it fortifies and defends the mind, over which it presides in person, against all the ills of this life that come to it from without.[79]

(2) PHILIP OF HARVENGT TO HERGALD, A STUDENT AT PARIS (DATE BETWEEN 1154 AND 1181)