Folio 182

Council of Sens, 1140 or 1141

printed p. 150 · pdf p. 182

367. Can. 23. "Those, moreover, who pretending a kind of piety condemn the sacrament of the Body and Blood of the Lord, the baptism of children, the sacred ministry and other ecclesiastical orders, and the bonds of legitimate marriages, we drive as heretics from the Church of God, and we both condemn and we command them to be restrained by exterior powers. We bind their defenders also by the chain of this same condemnation."1

COUNCIL OF SENS2 1140 or 1141

The Errors of Peter Abelard3

368. 1. That the Father is complete power, the Son a certain power, the Holy Spirit no power.

369. 2. That the Holy Spirit is not of the substance [another version:4 power] of the Father or of the Son.

370. 3. That the Holy Spirit is the soul of the world.

371. 4. That Christ did not assume flesh to free us from the yoke of the devil.

372. 5. That neither God and man, nor this Person which is Christ, is the third Person in the Trinity.

373. 6. That free will is sufficient in itself for any good.

374. 7. That God is only able to do or to omit those things, either in that manner only or at that time in which He does (them), and in no other.

375. 8. That God neither ought nor is He able to prevent evil.

376. 9. That we have not contracted sin from Adam, but only punishment.

377. 10. That they have not sinned who being ignorant have crucified Christ, and that whatever is done through ignorance must not be considered as sin.

Urban II in Synod of Melfi 1089, can. 16 [Msi XX 724 C]; from this last canon, Lateranensis has been taken word for word.

  1. This canon is against Peter de Bruis and the Neomanichaeans, from whom have arisen the Albigenses, and has been taken word for word from the Council of Toulouse of the year 1119, held in the presence of Callistus II [Msi XXI 234 A]. ↩

  2. In Gaul. ↩

  3. Msi XXI 568 C: Gotti, Veritas rel. Christ. II 352 b ff.; Hrd VI, II 1224 E; Hfl V 476; cf. Bar(Th) ad 1140 n. 7 f. (18, 583 a ff.); Paul Ruf and Mart. Grabmann, Ein neuaufgefundenes Bruchstück der Apologia Abaelarda (Sitzungsberichte der Bayr. Akad. d. Wiss. Philos.—hist. Abtlg. 1930, Heft 5], München 1930; in this fragment (p. 10 f.) all errors here noted in n. 368–386 are examined in the same order—Peter Abelard (Baiolardus), born 1079 in the town of Pallet, made a monk of St. Denis, taught in Paris. His errors were already condemned in 1121 in the Council of Sens, collected by St. Bernard, and set forth and rejected in the Council of Sens. He died April 21, 1142. ↩

  4. Cf. Rev. Apologétique 52 (1931) 397. ↩