Peter Abelard, French Philosopher and Theologian

Peter Abelard, French Philosopher and Theologian

Peter Abelard (1079 - April 21, 1142) was a medieval French scholastic philosopher, theologian and preeminent logician. His affair with and love for Héloïse d'Argenteuil has become legendary. The importance of Abelard lies in his having fixed more decisively than anyone before him the scholastic manner of philosophizing, with the object of giving a formal, rational expression to received ecclesiastical doctrine. In 1141, Pope Innocent II issued a bull excommunicating Abelard and his followers and imposing perpetual silence on him, to be confined in a monastery and his books to be burned. Abelard was saved from this sentence, however, by Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny. Peter managed to have the sentence of excommunication lifted, and persuaded Innocent that Abelard remain under the aegis of Cluny. While there he was treated, not as a condemned heretic, but as a revered and wise scholar. He died in 1142 from a combination of fever and a skin disorder, most likely scurvy.

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