Yet he has certainly little sympathy with the philosopher
whose personality has retained so unique an attraction
for the modern world. To him Abailard appears, as he
appears to a cynical a critic of our own day, as little more
than a rhetorician. He distrusts his method and his self-confident temper : he cannot forgive him for his scorn of his teachers, and is persuaded that he engaged in dialectical disputes for the mere pastime of the thing. Yet even here Otto’s judgement goes against his private aversion, and he is constrained to quote the story of Abailard’s trial and condemnation as a proof of saint Bernard’s credulity and morbid dislike of learned men. In fact
the attitude of jealousy, of suspicion, produced in men’s
minds by Abailard’s independent and arrogant bearing,
is not the least justification of the treatment to which
he was subjected. But these circumstances were wanting
in the affair of Gilbert of La Porrée: the case, says
Otto, was not the same, nor the matter kindred. For
Gilbert had from youth submitted himself to the teaching of great men, and trusted in their weight rather than in his own powers. He was on all accounts a serious and humble enquirer, and a man whose personal character stood as high as his reputation for learning. So undisputed indeed was his integrity that to attack him on points of faith might seem a hopeless undertaking. His archdeacons therefore were fain to resort to Clairvaux and rely on the authority and weight of abbat Bernard to accomplish Gilbert’s overthrow as successfully as
the same agency had been formerly employed against Abailard .
The calm narrative of the subsequent proceedings which Otto attempts has not been universally accepted as history. It has been held to be invalidated not only by the fact that the writer was at the time absent on the luckless enterprise of the second crusade, but also by a circumstance mentioned by his continuator Ragewin, namely that the bishop was haunted on his deathbed by a fear lest he should have said anything in favour of the
