"At the very outset of my work there, I set about completing the glosses on Ezekiel which I had begun at Laon. These proved so satisfactory to all who read them that they came to believe me no less adept in lecturing on theology than I had proved myself to be in the held of philosophy."
The Book of Ezekiel in the Old Testament had long proven to present difficulties for theological philosophers trying to interpret its meaning. In the New Testament, the prophetic Book of Revelation is significantly tied to the Book of Ezekiel. Interestingly, Revelation is the only New Testament canonical work to lend Ezekiel any serious recognition. Because of this notable absence, theologians had faced difficulty in parsing the meaning as it applied to Christian repurposing of Old Testament themes and figures. What Abelard is describing here is a significant moment in his career when he purposely chose to write about Ezekiel in part as a kind of challenge to prove himself capable of writing about a difficult subject with the insight of a theological expert. From that point on, Abelard’s theological works began to receive the same attention as his philosophical texts.
"The master key of knowledge is, indeed, a persistent and frequent questioning…By doubting we come to examine, and by examining we reach the truth."
Philosophy is defined as the study of knowledge. The philosophical works of Abelard are resolute and unbending in locating the secret of knowledge within the process of skepticism. It was precisely over the subject of doubt that he was pressed to apply his intellectual skills to the problematic nature of Ezekiel. In Historia Calamitatum, he describes precisely the origin of his reputation-making writings on the subject. He portrays the circumstances by which he arrived at the revelation that skepticism is the key to knowledge and was one day pressed by his fellow students to prove himself. When demanded to provide an example of a “doubtful passage in the Scriptures” they were all in agreement that the strangeness of the Book of Ezekiel was the perfect choice by which he could prove his contentions on the link between doubt and truth.
"It is true, that in a sense of the afflictions which had befallen us, and observing that no change of our condition was to be expected; that those prosperous days which had seduced us were now past, and there remained nothing but to eraze out of our minds, by painful endeavours, all marks and remembrance of them, I had wished to find in philosophy and religion a remedy for my disgrace."
The letters written by Abelard and addressed to Heloise in this volume are greatly concerned with issues of temptation, sin, love, and guilt. These recurring obsessive themes strongly indicate what he means here when he writes of “my disgrace.” The exact phrase “my disgrace” will show up on five different occasions in just this one letter. The quality of the guilt which weighs heavily on his conscience can thus be interpreted as an integral driving force behind both Abelard’s pursuit of philosophical and theological knowledge. The mention of seduction being long past also hints toward this point in his life being a transformative era in his development of both philosophical and theological inquiry.
