the possibility that the corpus delicti, his Commentary on Boëthius, itself, really contained doctrines as objectionable as they; and it was not intended to give him the benefit of a flaw in the indictment. His opponents accordingly addressed their skill to the Commentary; but here they were still more obviously outmatched, for, however creditably they might argue on detached points for which patristic proofs and disproofs had been previously prepared for them, no one present was sufficiently qualified by his learning to criticise the whole book in detail.[1] The pope proposed that it should be handed to him that he might erase anything that might require erasure; but Gilbert repeated that his orthodoxy was assured and that it was his own duty to alter whatever was amiss in the book, a declaration received with loud applause by the cardinals, who thought that now at last their work was nearly over.
But Bernard had one more shaft in his quiver. He, or his satellite Geoffrey of Auxerre, had constructed a set of four formulas corresponding to and correcting the four heresies enumerated in the original indictment. This symbol was to be a test of Gilbert's obedience. But the fact that Gilbert had throughout unswervingly declared his adhesion to the catholic faith combined with the cardinals' long smouldering jealousy of Bernard's influence to make its production the signal for an angry outcry. The document was at length admitted, as it were on sufferance, but not so as to bind the council to its terms: nor can we tell with certainty how far Gilbert accepted it. John of Salisbury says, he was admonished
- ↑ Helinand, Chron. xlviii., a. 1148, relates a conversation he had with an adherent of Gilbert, master Stephen of Alinerra (Aliverra, or Alvierra, Alberic. Chron., a. 1149 Bouquet 13. 702 B; cf. Pertz 23. 840, 1874), one of the clerks of Henry count of Champagne, and canon of Beauvais, who boasted that at the council of Rheims 'our Bernard could prevail nothing against his Gilbert,' and detracted in other ways from Bernard's reputation in the affair. Wherefore, conjectures the chronicler, master Stephen died in the very year of this interview: Tissier, Bibliotheca Patrum Cisterciensium 7, 186 b; 1669.
