a mighty prophet in the Church. The life of Abelard is a tragedy throughout,-fascinating, if at all, as tragedy,-a life of stress and storm, full of its own strange horror, and strange pathos. Something more was needed than it was in him to supply, in order to commend-I will not quite say the Abælardian view of the atonement, but rather the view which he approached, but to which he did, after all, very imperfect justice, to the heart and conscience of Christendom. Whatever sympathy we may feel for him, intellectually or otherwise, it would not be fair to condemn those who, under all the circumstances, looked askance on his teaching and set themselves to oppose it, if only they had themselves been scrupulously fair in the methods of their opposition.

But incomplete and imperfectly consistent though his teaching was, it contains, beyond all question, the germ, and something more than the germ, of an exposition of the atonement far deeper and more inclusive than that of the theologians who condemned him.

It may be well to put together various things which he does say about Christ's atoning work, beginning with some of those in which he most conforms to the thought of his age, and asserts the things which he was accused of denying. Thus he asserts that, seeing that we were bought by the blood of Christ, we must have been bought from the master, who, by the bond of our sins, held us enslaved, and to whom it belonged to fix his price. It was the devil, then, who, as our master and owner, determined his price, and who asked for us the blood of Christ.

"Scriptum est in Epistola Petri quia redempti sumus precioso sanguine unigeniti, ab aliquo sine dubio empti cujus eramus servi, qui et pretium proposuit quod voluit, ut dimitteret quod tenebat. Tenebat autem nos diabolus, cui districti fueramus peccatis nostris. Poposcit ergo pretium nostrum sanguinem Christi."1

So, in commenting on the last verses of Rom. vii., he speaks of us as "justly delivered from the dominion of sin or the devil": "ut nos juste a dominio peccati sive diaboli possit eruere et a captivitate prædicta tanquam suos reducere."

So, on v. 6, he says that Christ's dying for the ungodly was to deliver them from condemnation,-" ut eos videlicet a damnatione liberaret."

1 In Rom. Lib. II. (on ch. iv. 11).

So, on viii. 3, "God caused his co-eternal Wisdom to assume passible and mortal humanity, that while He subjected Himself to the punishment of sin, He might appear to have a personal share in the flesh that is conceived in sin." "Co-æternam sibi sapientiam fecit humiliari usque ad assumptionem passibilis et mortalis hominis, ita ut per pœnam peccati cui subjacebat, ipse etiam carnem peccati, id est in peccato conceptam, habere videretur." Commenting on the same passage, he goes on: "And for sin, that is, the punishment of sin, which He bore for us in the flesh"; "de peccato, id est de poena peccati quam pro nobis sustinuit in carne, id est in humanitate assumpta non secundum divinitatem."

And so in the so-called Apologia he says, with confident brevity, that the Son of God was incarnate that He might deliver us from the slavery of sin, and the yoke of the devil, and might open to us by His death the entrance into everlasting life. "Solum Filium Dei incarnatum profiteor, ut nos a servitute peccati et a jugo diaboli liberaret, et supernæ aditum vitæ morte sua nobis reseraret."

On Rom. iv. 25, he lays down that there are two ways in which Christ died "for our sins"; first, because the sins which were the cause of His death, and of which He bore the 'poena,' were our sins: and secondly, because His death was to do away our sins, purchasing our exemption from 'pœna,' while it also won us by the revelation of His love, and so drew away, from any will to sin, the souls that were in love with Him. "Duobus modis propter delicta nostra mortuus dicitur, tum quia nos deliquimus propter quod ille moreretur, et peccatum commisimus cujus ille pœnam sustinuit, tum etiam ut peccata nostra moriendo tolleret, i.e., pœnam peccatorum introducens nos in Paradisum pretio suæ mortis auferret, et, per exhibitionem tantæ gratiæ, quia, ut ipse ait, majorem dilectionem nemo habet, animos nostros a voluntate peccandi retraheret, et in summam suam dilectionem intenderet."

The relations of cause and effect, which are not quite clear in the second half of this thought, become clearer in his reply to the 'quæstio' raised upon the passage ending Rom. iii. 26. Here he says explicitly that our real justification, in which we are reconciled to God, is the Divine love kindled in our own hearts, through our apprehension of the Divine love manifested in the crucifixion. It is the supreme presence of love within ourselves-the

direct result of the passion of Christ, a love which lifts us out of the slavery of sin, into the true liberty of the children of God. It was for the kindling of this true liberty of love in man, that Christ declares Himself to have come.

"Nobis autem videtur quod in hoc justificati sumus in sanguine Christi, et Deo reconciliati, quod per hanc singularem gratiam nobis exhibitam, quod Filius suus nostram susceperit naturam, et in ipso nos tam verbo quam exemplo instituendo usque ad mortem perstitit, nos sibi amplius per amorem astrinxit; ut tanto divinæ gratiæ accensi beneficio, nil jam tolerare propter ipsum vera reformidet caritas. Redemptio itaque nostra

est illa summa in nobis per passionem Christi dilectio, quæ non solum a servitute peccati liberat sed veram nobis filiorum Dei libertatem acquirit; ut amore ejus potius quam timore cuncta impleamus, qui nobis tantam exhibuit gratiam, qua major inveniri ipso attestante non potest. Majorem hac, inquit, dilectionem nemo habet, quam ut animam suam ponat pro amicis suis. De hoc quidem amore Dominus alibi ait, Ignem veni mittere in terram, et quid volo nisi ut ardeat? Ad hanc itaque veram caritatis libertatem in hominibus propagandam se venisse testatur. Quod diligenter attendens apostolus in sequentibus ait, Quia caritas Dei diffusa est in cordibus nostris per Spiritum sanctum qui datus est nobis.” 1

The passage is a very striking one. But there are two matters for sincere regret; the first that he seems to lay so much causal stress upon the 'exhibition' of the love of the Cross, as though he conceived it as working its effect mainly as an appeal, or incitement, to feeling: and the second that he fails to follow up the clue which his own quotation of Rom. v. 5 might have supplied to him. The doctrine of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Christ within the personality of Christians, would have supplied the whole truth which he desired, without the risk, to which his own expressions seem to be liable, of making the effect of Calvary itself appear primarily as an appeal to human emotions.

The same thought is re-echoed when he comes to the passage in Rom. v. itself. "Merito dixi caritatem diffusam in cordibus nostris. Nam propter quid aliud, nisi videlicet ut in nobis dilataretur caritas Dei?"

"Notandum vero est apostolum hoc loco modum nostræ redemptionis per mortem Christi patenter exprimere, cum 1 Rom. v. 5, with 6 and 8. The passage is in the comment on Rom. iii. 26.

videlicet eum pro nobis non ob aliud mortuum dicit, nisi per veram illam caritatis libertatem in nobis propagandam, per hanc videlicet qua nobis exhibuit summam dilectionem, sicut ipse ait Majorem hac dilectionem nemo habet etc. Commendat Deus.] id est, ædificat_sive confirmat. suam caritatem in nobis.] quoniam scilicet Dei Christus Filius pro nobis mortuus est cum adhuc peccatores essemus.] Quod si ita respexit cum essemus peccatores, morti scilicet unicum suum pro nobis tradendo, multo magis ergo.] id est, multo facilius sive libentius vel probabilius nunc respiciet nos ad salvationem jam justificatos in sanguine suo, id est, jam per dilectionem quam in eo habemus, ex hac summa gratia, quam nobis exhibuit, pro nobis, scilicet, adhuc peccatoribus moriendo. Et hoc est, salvi erimus ab ira.] scilicet futura, id est, a peccatorum vindicta, per ipsum.] videlicet Christum pro nobis semel morientem, et sæpius orantem, et assidue nos instruentem."

It was thus that the Cross really did what the law had tried and failed to do, for the law had commanded love to God and to man: but the Cross drew it out perforce and in this love it is that sin is condemned and destroyed. This is what is meant when Christ is said to have been made a victim for us. "Non dicit opera legis, quæ nequaquam justificant, sed quod lex præcipit de his quæ ad justificationem attinent, sine quibus justificari non possumus, sicut est Dei et proximi caritas; quam lex imperfectam facit, sicut supra monuimus; sed per Christum in nobis perficitur. Et hoc est quod ait, ut caritas Dei et proximi, quam lex præcipit, in nobis perfecta nos justificaret. Ipsum quippe Christum tanquam Deum, ipsum proximum vere diligere, summum illud beneficium, quod nobis exhibuit, compellit; quod est in nobis peccatum damnare, id est, reatum omnem et culpam destruere per caritatem ex hoc summo beneficio. Quod verius, inquit, habetur apud Græcos pro peccato damnavit peccatum ipse hostia pro peccato factus. Per hanc hostiam carnis quæ dicitur pro peccato damnavit, id est delevit peccatum, quia remissionem quoque peccatorum nobis in sanguine suo et reconciliationem operatus est."1

Thus, then, we hang wholly upon Christ, in believing faith, which is our righteousness. "Hæc est illa justitia quæ ex fide est Christi, id est, ipsa fides in Christum habita nos justificans." "

And true faith is not only of the lips but of the heart and the will, of the character and the life. "Ore suo con

fitetur, qui quod enunciat intelligit. Corde suo credit qui cor et voluntatem suam applicat his quæ credit, ut ipsa videlicet fides eum ad opera trahat; veluti cum quis credendo Christum a mortuis resurrexisse in vitam æternam, satagit prout potest ut vestigia ejus sequendo ad ejusdem vitæ beatitudinem perveniat." 1

It would be unfair to pass from Abelard without some representation of those more pathetic expressions which exhibit, at least in part, the translation of his speculation into his experience. How really and how profoundly he conceived of the study of the Cross as entering into the very being of him who studied it, may be gathered from his 5th letter, the letter in which he attempts to give comfort to Heloissa, when she had bewailed, in language most piercing and pathetic, the haunting misery of her repentance.

"Art thou not moved to tears or to compunction by the only begotten of God, who, having done no wrong, was for thy sake and for all, seized by most impious men, and dragged away and scourged, and with covered face mocked, smitten with the hand, spat upon, crowned with thorns, and at length hung between thieves on the gibbet of the Cross, then so disgraceful, and slain by the sort of death which was then most appalling and accursed. Have Him, my sister,-thine own and the whole Church's true spousehave Him before thine eyes, carry Him in thy mind! Gaze upon Him as He goes out to be crucified for thee, laden with His own Cross. Be thou of the people and the women who were bewailing and lamenting Him (quoting Luke xxiii. 27-31). Suffer thou with Him who suffered willingly for thy redemption, and be thou pierced with Him who was crucified for thee. Stand, in mind, ever at His sepulchre, and lament and mourn with the women, of whom it is written (as I said before) 'The women, sitting at the tomb, lamented the Lord with tears.' Prepare, with them, the ointments for His burial-yet better ointments than those, of the spirit not of the body-for He who received not those spices asks for these. So, with love's utter devotion, be thou pierced to the heart! He, Himself, by the word of Jeremiah, calls His believers to this fellowship of passion and of piercing. 'O all ye who pass by, behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow,' that is, if there be any sufferer whose suffering so calls for sympathy and sorrow; since I alone, without fault, atone for the faults of others. He is, Himself, the way by which the

1 On Rom. x. 9.