WorkHeloise

Heloise's Questions

Forty-two questions about the Bible that an abbess and her nuns could not settle, sent to Peter Abelard with a reminder that he owed them answers.

by Heloise146 passages held

Latin, the original language

Original title: Problemata Heloissae cum solutionibus Abaelardi
First published: 1135(aged 35)
Original language: Latin

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Overview

Jerome, the fourth-century translator of the Bible into Latin, praised a Roman woman named Marcella for the way she studied scripture: she accepted nothing on his authority, questioned every explanation he gave and weighed it, so that he felt he had a judge more than a pupil. Heloise opens with that story and then tells Peter Abelard why she is telling it. He had gathered her nuns in his own oratory, the Paraclete, after they lost their convent at Argenteuil in 1129, and he had told them that scripture read without understanding is a mirror held up to someone who cannot see. They took him at his word, she writes, and the reading left them with difficulties that made the study harder to love. In the 1130s she sent him forty-two of these, in no order, as they had come up day by day, and asked him to pay what he owed. The book treats a sacred text as something a reader may question wherever it fails to agree with itself. The evangelists differ about which women first saw the risen Christ, and about the cock-crow that Christ foretold to Peter; the nuns want to know why. They ask who added the account of Moses's death to the end of the books of Moses. If only someone without sin may stone the woman taken in adultery, they ask, may anyone punish anyone? Seven questions in a row come from the first book of Samuel, most of them about Hannah, the mother of the prophet Samuel. Abelard answers each, some in a few lines. The last question asks whether a person can sin in doing what God has permitted or commanded; the discussion turns to sex within marriage, and draws one of his two longest replies. The scholar Simon Plumetot gave a late medieval manuscript of the text to the abbey of Saint-Victor in Paris. Victor Cousin, the French philosopher, edited it among Abelard's works in 1849, and Elizabeth McNamer published an English translation in 1991. The medievalist Peter Dronke was preparing a new edition when he died in 2020 and left it unfinished.

Key concepts

What is a 'problem' in the Problems of Heloise?

A difficulty in the Bible, put as a question for a teacher to resolve. Most open 'What does it mean that…' or 'How can it stand that…', quote the passage and say exactly what does not fit: two verses that disagree, a saying that seems unjust, an act the law forbids. Each is followed by Abelard's reply, called a solution. Heloise calls them little questions, sent by a pupil to her teacher.

How does Abelard explain passages of scripture that contradict each other?

By showing that the writers speak loosely, briefly or with a later hand's help. Scripture by custom lets 'day' cover a day and its night, he says, so Mark can write 'today, this night'. Mark names Isaiah for words of Malachi because both prophets say the same thing and Isaiah has the greater authority. And the account of Moses's death was added by Ezra, who rewrote the scriptures after they were burnt.

What is the difference between moral and figurative commandments?

Moral commandments say how to live and bind everyone at all times. Figurative ones were set up for a period as signs of something else. To love God and neighbour, not to kill, not to lie were owed before any law was written, and no one is saved without them. Keeping the Sabbath, circumcision and avoiding certain foods make no one just. When Christ says he came to fulfil the law, Abelard applies it to the moral kind alone.

Why should a parable not be read as literal fact?

Because a parable draws a likeness in one respect and does not report events. Abelard's proof is the damned rich man who asks that Lazarus cool his tongue with a fingertip: souls have neither fingers nor tongues. So the vineyard workers who grumble at equal pay do not show envy among the blessed. Their grumbling stands for the wonder of the faithful at seeing those who worked a shorter time made their equals.

Where does sin lie, in the answers Heloise received?

In the heart, not in the outward act. Explaining the saying that what enters the mouth does not defile a person, Abelard writes that Christ traces everything back to the intention and judges by what is in the heart. A soul is stained only by what is in it: the evil thoughts from which murder, adultery and theft come. The law of Moses, he adds elsewhere, forbade deeds more than intentions.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

A judge more than a pupil

What may a reader do when a holy book does not agree with itself? Heloise holds that scripture read without understanding is a mirror before blind eyes, and that asking is the cure.

Her model is Marcella, the Roman woman who took nothing on Jerome's authority and weighed each answer until he felt he had a judge. The nuns read as Abelard urged and stalled on the text itself. John has Mary Magdalene alone at the tomb, the others several women. The cock crows once in three gospels and twice in Mark. Three days and three nights in the grave do not fit between Friday and Sunday. Mark credits Isaiah with words of Malachi. The books of Moses narrate his death. Abelard reconciles each: a manner of speaking, a shorthand, a later hand.

biblical interpretation
scriptural interpretation
gospels
language
prophecy
resurrection
time
eucharist
priesthood
covenant

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When a commandment seems unjust

Is a saying of Christ still good if, taken at its word, it would forbid all justice or favour the worse person? Many of the questions press a moral teaching until it explains itself.

If only the sinless may throw the first stone, no one may ever punish, since no one is clean. If we are judged as we judge, what follows from an unjust verdict? If we must do to others what we want done to us, must we help in the wrong we would like help with? Why more joy over one penitent than over ninety-nine who never fell? Abelard's replies keep returning to the heart, where he says Christ places sin. The last question asks whether a person can sin in doing what God permits, and turns to desire within marriage.

law
justice
punishment
sin
moral responsibility
repentance
charity
envy
beatitudes
salvation
grace
divine grace
faith
humility
blasphemy
virtue
intention
marriage
sexual ethics
procreation

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Within this work

passages held: 146
distinct concepts: 239
by passages held, corpus-wide: #424

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “biblical interpretation” and “prophecy”.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 9 pairings. 94 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
biblical interpretation	prophecy	12
marriage	sexual ethics	12
marriage	procreation	10
procreation	sexual ethics	7
biblical interpretation	sin	3
biblical interpretation	eucharist	2
scriptural interpretation	sin	2
eucharist	scriptural interpretation	1
marriage	sin	1

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

1132 Epistolae ad Petrum Abaelardum
Three letters, the second, fourth and sixth of the correspondence that opens with Abelard's account of his misfortunes. These letters are her earlier work; the questions on scripture she sent him followed some years later.
LA
1135 Heloise's Questions (Problemata Heloissae cum solutionibus Abaelardi) you are here LA

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