Epistolæ

• Peter Abelard

• Heloise, abbess of the Paraclete

To the Nuns of the Paraclete

In his great concern for the virgins of Christ and their instruction, and in his writings for their edification, the blessed Jerome strongly recommended the study of sacred literature, encouraging them in this study by both word and example. I have in mind what he said by way of advising the monk Rusticus: “Love the knowledge of Scripture and you will not love the vices of the flesh.” Indeed, he regarded the love of study as especially appropriate to women, since they are naturally weaker and physically more susceptible than men. Nor was this advice meant only for virgins, as he noted in comparing their studies with the no less important examples offered by widows and married women. As an inspiration to the brides of Christ in this study of Scripture, the example of lay women’s virtue should banish the nuns’ lethargy or arouse them from it.
Since, as St. Gregory says, “we begin with the lesser in order to reach the greater,” Jerome was pleased to begin by noting how diligently little girls undertook the study of sacred literature. If I may pass over other remarks of his, he conveyed their essence in his advice to Laeta regarding the instruction of her daughter, Paula, and the molding of her character.
Jerome:
This is how a soul must be trained that is to become a temple of God. Have a set of letters made for her of boxwood or ivory, and tell her their names. Let her play with them, making play a path to learning, and let her not only grasp the correct order of the letters and remember their names in a simple song, but also upset their order and mix the last letters with the middle ones, the middle with the first. When she begins to press the stylus in the wax with a shaky hand, either have someone’s hand placed over hers to guide it or else have the letters marked out on the tablet so that her writing may follow their outlines and keep to their limits without wandering away. Reward her with prizes for spelling, tempting her with the little gifts young children love.
She should have companions in her lessons as well, so that she may try to rival them and be stimulated by any praise they win. Do not scold her if she is a little slow; praise is the mind’s best sharpener. Let her be happy when she is first, and sad when she falls behind. Above all, be careful not to make her lessons unattractive; a childish dislike often lasts beyond childhood. The words she will use to practice making sentences should not be picked at random but carefully chosen and purposefully arranged. For example, let her take the names of the prophets and the apostles along with the entire list of the patriarchs from Adam forward, as recorded by Matthew and Luke; making two lists at the same time will help her to remember them afterward.
You should choose as her teacher a man of suitable age, life, and learning. Even a wise person is not ashamed, I think, to do for a relative or for a noble virgin what Aristotle did for Philip’s son when, like a humble clerk, he taught Alexander his first letters. Nothing should be despised as trifling, if without it great results are impossible without it. The very letters themselves, and so the first lesson about them, sound differently when they are spoken by a learned man rather than by a peasant. Children should never learn what they will later have to unlearn. The first impression made on a young mind is hard to eradicate. Greek history tells us that the mighty King Alexander, who subdued the whole world, could not rid himself of the tricks of manner and movement that in his childhood he had picked up from his tutor.
Abelard paraphrases Jerome’s text:
To help the child commit to memory the pronunciation of Scripture, a certain amount of reading should be assigned every day for memorizing. Attention should be given to the study not only of Latin, but also of Greek, because both are commonly spoken in Rome, and especially because the Scriptures had been translated from Greek into Latin, so that the pupil can know them better from their origins and can understand them more truly. (For the Latin world had not yet begun the translation of Hebrew Truth).
Then Jerome said:
Let her repeat to you every day a passage in Scriptures as her assigned task. A good many of these lines she should learn by heart in Greek, but knowledge of the Latin should follow closely after it. If the young child’s lips are not trained from the beginning, the language is spoiled by a foreign accent, and our native tongue debased by alien mistakes. Rather than trusting in jewels or silk let her love the Holy Scriptures, preferring their learned style rather than gilding and Babylonian parchment with elaborate decorations. Let her learn the Psalter first; let her divert herself with these songs, and then she should learn lessons for living from the Proverbs of Solomon. In reading Ecclesiastes, she should become accustomed to trampling underfoot the things of this world; let her follow the examples of virtue and patience she will find in Job. Once she has moved to the Gospels, she should never again let them out of her hands. Let her embrace the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles with all her heart. As soon as she has enriched her mind’s storehouse with these treasures, she should commit to memory the Prophets, the Heptateuch, the Books of Kings and the Chronicles, and the scrolls of Ezra and Esther. Then at last she may safely read the Song of Songs; if she were to read it first, she might be harmed by not perceiving in its carnal language the song of a spiritual bridal union.
She should avoid all of the apochryphal books and if she ever wishes to read them, not for the truth of their teaching but out of respect for their remarkable stories, she should realize that they were not actually written by those to whom they are attributed. They are full of mistakes and great perception is needed in looking for gold in the mud. Let her always keep Cyprian’s works at hand, and explore the letters of Athanasius and the writings of Hilary with assurance. She may take pleasure in the learned commentaries of all those writers who sustain in their books a steady love of the faith. If she reads others, it should be as a critic rather than a follower.
You (Laeta) will answer: “How shall I, a woman of the world living among the crowds of men in Rome, be able to watch over her in keeping with all of these injunctions?” But I reply, then do not take up a burden that you cannot carry. After you have weaned Paula, send her to her grandmother and aunt [Paula and Eustochium]. Set this most precious jewel in Mary’s resting-place, and put her in the cradle where Jesus cried. Let her be reared in the company of virgins, in a monastery where she will learn never to take an oath and to regard a lie as sacrilege. Let her reject the world, and live like the angels; let her be in the flesh, without yielding to the fleshly, but thinking everyone else is like herself. In this way she will free you from the difficult task of watching over her, and from all the perils of guardianship.
It is better for you to miss her in her absence than to worry every minute about what she is saying, to whom she is speaking, whom she greets, and whom she likes to see. Give Eustochium this little child, whose crying is now a prayer in your behalf, to be her companion today, and to inherit her sanctity in the years to come. Let her look upon and love, ‘let her from her first years admire,’ one whose words and movement and dress are an education in virtue. Let her sit on the lap of her grandmother [Paula], whom long experience has taught how to rear, instruct, and watch over virgins.
After Anna brought to the tabernacle the son whom she had promised to God, she never took him back again. If you will send us Paula, I undertake to be both her tutor and her foster-father. I shall carry her on my shoulders and my old tongue shall train her stammering lips. I shall take more pride in my task than did the worldly philosopher [Aristotle]. For I shall not be teaching a Macedonian king, fated to die by poison in Babylon, but a handmaid and bride of Christ, destined to be offered the celestial throne.
Abelard to the nuns of the Paraclete:
Consider, dearest sisters in Christ, and likewise you lay sisters, how much care this great doctor of the Church gave to the education of one little girl, diligently planning the whole so as to answer in detail the needs of teaching, beginning with the alphabet itself. Not only did he go on to the pronunciation of syllables and the joining together of letters as well as the writing of texts. He also provided for young companions whose envy and praise he emphasized very strongly. To encourage the child to respond to her studies spontaneously rather than under compulsion, thus moving her to embrace them with greater love, he advised compliments and praise as well as the reward of little presents. He also organized words assembled from Scripture, putting those first that he recommended as the best exercise for her memory, in keeping with Horace’s words: “ The first impression made on young minds is hard to erase.”
Jerome carefully described the kind of teacher who should be chosen for this purpose and he did not neglect the fixed amount of reading that, as he explained, should be memorized daily. Although at that time Greek literature was very actively taught in Rome, he did not require his pupil to be expert in it. This was especially, I believe, because translation of the sacred books had passed from the Greeks to us, which made it possible to discern what was missing or different in our translations, and perhaps also because the discipline of the liberal arts made no small contribution to encouraging the quest for perfection in learning.
Jerome stressed learning of Latin as the beginning of our mastery. When, however, he progressed from the sound of words to their meaning, and then to the understanding of Scriptures, he distinguished between two kind of books, one containing the Old and New Testaments and the other the lesser commentaries of teachers whose learning aided their study’s progress toward completion. Among the canonical Scriptures he so strongly recommended the Gospels that, he declared, they should never leave the hands of virgins, as if he imposed the reading of the Gospels more strongly on deaconesses than on deacons, since these were obliged only to recite them in church while the women were enjoined never to give up reading them.
Then, in case this mother [Laeta] should offer the excuse that no lay woman could carry out a program involving such frequent association with men, he advised her to free herself from this burden, and send her daughter to a community of virgins where she could be educated without danger and instructed in those subjects of which he had spoken. Finally, so as not to lose an opportunity for the kind of teacher he had described, he persuaded Laeta to send the girl from Rome to Jerusalem, to her grandmother, Paula, and her aunt, Eustochium, offering himself at one and the same time as teacher and guide.
Wonderful to say, in fulfilling such a promise, this great doctor of the Church, weakened though he was by age, said that he did not disdain carrying the young girl as a burden on his shoulders. This could hardly happen, however, without arousing suspicion among those who were already suspicious, and giving scandal to the religious. But, strengthened by God and by an integrity of life long well known to everyone, Jerome responded confidently that he could teach this one virgin in such a way that in her, he would leave to others a teacher through whom Jerome might teach without being seen as Jerome.
But now let us proceed from the younger to the older virgins, whom he always encouraged in literary studies by writing to advise them about what they should read, and by praising them for their constancy in study and learning. We see this in what he wrote to Principia regarding the forty-fourth psalm:
I know that I am often much criticized because I sometimes write to women and seem to prefer the more fragile sex to the stronger. So I owe it to my detractors to reply to this charge first and thus I come to the brief discussion that you have requested. If men would seek out the Scriptures, I would not be addressing women. If Baraih had wished to go into battle, Deborah would not have triumphed over the defeated enemy.”
Somewhat later he says:
Aquila and Priscilla taught Apollo, an apostolic man and very learned in the Law, and instructed him in the way of the Lord. If it was not shameful for an apostle to be taught by a woman, why is it shameful for me to teach women, too, after men? This and its like I have touched on briefly, to ensure that you should not be penalized because of your sex, or those men encouraged who are condemned when the life of women is praised in Holy Scriptures.
After virgins, Jerome was pleased to speak admiringly, offering examples and praise, about the abundant progress of widows in the study of sacred literature. Thus, writing to the same virgin, Principia, as she had requested, about the life of the saintly Marcella, Jerome stressed among her distinguished virtues: “Her ardent love for God’s Scriptures surpasses all belief. She was forever singing: ‘Your words have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against you.’ and also the passage about the perfect man: ‘His delight is in the law of the Lord; and on his law he meditates day and night,’ and ‘Through your precepts I have got understanding.’”
Lastly Jerome wrote:
When the needs of the church brought me also to Rome in company with the holy pontiffs [Paulinus and Epiphanius, respectively of the churches of Syrian Antioch and of Salamis in Cyprus], in my modesty I was inclined to avoid the company of aristocratic ladies. But Marcella was so urgent ‘both in season and out of season’, as the Apostle says (I Tim. 4:12), that her persistence overcame my timidity. At that time I had some reputation as a student of Scriptures, and so she never met me without asking me questions about them. Nor would she ever rest content at once, but would bring forward points on the other side. This was not for the sake of argument, however, but rather so that by questioning she might learn an answer to any objection that, in her view, might be raised.
What virtue and intellect, what holiness and purity, I found in her I hesitate to say, both because I would exceed the limits of human belief, and also because I might increase the pain of your grief by reminding you of the blessings you have lost. This alone I shall say: all that I had gathered together by long study and made part of my nature by constant meditation, she first sipped, then learned, and finally took for her own. Consequently, after my departure from Rome, if any argument arose, it was to her verdict that people appealed regarding the testimony of Scriptures.
Because Marcella was very prudent, when she was questioned in this way, even if her answers were her own, she said that they came not from her but from me or someone else, claiming that she was a pupil even when she was teaching. Well aware that the Apostle said: ‘I do not allow a woman to teach,’ she did not wish to embarrass the male sex and sometimes even the priests who asked her questions about obscure and doubtful matters. Meanwhile she and I consoled ourselves for our separation by conversing in letters, discharging in the spirit the debt that we could not pay in the flesh. Our letters always crossed, outdone in courtesies, anticipated in greetings. Separation brought no great loss since it was bridged by our continuing correspondence.
In the midst of this tranquillity and service to God, there arose in these provinces a tempest that threw everything into confusion, and finally swelled to such heights of madness that it spared neither itself nor anything that was good. As if it were not enough to have disturbed all of our community here, it dispatched a ship laden with blasphemers to the port of Rome. Their muddy feet befouled the clear doctrine of the Roman faith. Finally, our saintly Marcella, who had closed her eyes to all this for a long time, not wishing to assert herself in the conflict, found that the faith once praised by the Apostle was now being endangered in many people, and she came forward openly on my side. Since the heretic was not only drawing to his cause priests, monks, and, above all, lay people, but was even imposing on the simplicity of the bishop, who judged other men by himself, Marcella publicly withstood him, choosing to please God rather than men.
It was she who took the first steps in getting the heretics condemned, bringing forward as witnesses those who had first been instructed by them and afterward had seen the error of their heresy. It was she who revealed the numbers of those they had deceived, while she brandished in their faces the impious book, On First Principles, which, as amended by that scorpion (Rufinus), was then openly on view. It was she, finally, who in a succession of letters challenged the heretics to defend themselves. But they did not dare. So strong was their awareness of sin that they preferred to be condemned in their absence rather than to appear and be proved guilty. For this great victory Marcella was responsible.
Abelard to the nuns of the Paraclete:
You have seen, dearly beloved sisters, how beneficial it was for the city of Rome that heresies were suppressed by the leadership of this woman and her praiseworthy zeal for learning. Concerning the proficiency in sacred studies by which she merited this victory, Jerome recalls this for your encouragement in Book I of his commentary on Paul’s epistle to the Galatians:
Indeed, I know how her ardor, her faith, the flame that burns in her breast have moved her to transcend her sex, to forget about men, to make the tympanum of the holy books resound, to pass over the Red Sea of this world. Certainly, when I am in Rome, she never sees me without hastening to ask me something concerning the Scriptures. Yet she follows the Pythagorean custom and does not accept whatever I may answer as correct; authority unsupported by reason does not convince her. But she investigates everything, and weighs it all in her sagacious mind, and thus she makes me feel that I have not so much a pupil as a judge.
Abelard continues:
Scriptural studies flourished so actively among holy women at that time, just as among men, that they never drew merely upon the rivulets of Scripture. Instead, they sought the sources, believing that a single language was not enough for them. So we have what Jerome said concerning the death of Paula’s daughter Blesilla, writing among other words in her praise:
Who could contemplate without weeping the constancy of her prayers, the power of her tongue, the tenacity of her memory, the sharpness of her mind? If you heard her speaking Greek, you would have thought that she did not know Latin. If she turned her tongue to Roman speech, no strange sound would come from her mouth. Now, indeed, with the swiftness marveled at in the case of Origen’s Greek, she had—in a few, I do not say months, but days—so mastered the difficulties of Hebrew that she rivaled her mother in learning Psalms by heart and chanting them.
Abelard continues:
Indeed, their teacher, Jerome himself, did not surpass Paula and that other daughter of hers, the virgin Eustochium, who was dedicated to God, in the same study of literature and languages. Writing about these in commemorating the life of Paula, he said:
No talents were better adapted to study and learning than hers. Slow to speak, swift to learn, she was mindful of the precept: ‘Listen, Israel, and be silent.’ She cherished the Scriptures in her memory, and finally persuaded me to discuss them with her as she read through both Old and New Testaments with her daughter. At first refusing this out of modesty, I was persuaded by her constant insistence and frequent demands that I should teach what I had learned. If I ever hesitated and frankly confessed my ignorance, she would never agree with me, but compelled me to join in questioning, and declaring which among many and diverse opinions seemed to me more probable. I speak about something that may seem unbelievable: the Hebrew language that I have studied from my youth with much labor, sweat, and untiring meditation, I never neglect now, for fear that she may neglect me. She has wished to continue learning this language so that she can sing the Psalms in Hebrew, as well as to learn to speak the Greek language without any echo of Latin. This desire we find also today in her holy daughter, Eustochium.
These women knew that the teaching of the Latin text of Scriptures had proceeded from Hebrew and Greek texts, and that the idiom could not be preserved to the fullest in translation. Priding themselves on the perfection of their Hebrew and Greek, they were sometimes accustomed to deriding our translations as imperfect, asserting by way of argument that when any liquid was poured into many vessels in turn, these were necessarily reduced in fullness and their amount in other vessels would not be equal to the first. Thus it often happened that we tried to oppose the Jews with certain arguments which they were accustomed to refute easily against us in our ignorance of Hebrew, because of the falsity, as they say, of our translations. So these wisest of women, described earlier as diligently attentive, were by no means content with their own language. They wished not only to teach their own pupils, but also to refute others, and strengthen their own position with the most limpid waters from the fount.
To this end, especially, if I am not mistaken, Jerome fostered their mastery of languages by his own example. Regarding the extensive labor and expense with which he sought this perfection, he wrote to Pammachius and Oceanus in these words:
When I was young, I burned with a marvelous love of learning and I did not imitate the presumption of some others by teaching myself. I often listened to the teaching of Appolinaris the Laodicean at Antioch. When I studied with him and he instructed me in the holy Scriptures, I never accepted his contentious doctrine regarding the senses. My hair was already gray and I should have been a teacher rather than a student. Yet, passing on to Alexandria, I listened to the teaching of Didymus; I am grateful to him for learning many things I did not know, and I have not wasted diverse aspects of his teaching. People thought that I had come to an end of my studies. But I returned to Jerusalem and at great labor and expense I had Baranninah, a Hebrew, as a teacher at night. For he was afraid of the Jews and he showed himself to me as another Nicodemus. I have mentioned all of these men often in my briefer writings.
Abelard to the nuns of the Paraclete:
By stressing the zeal of such a great teacher and of holy women in the study of divine Scriptures, I wish to urge and implore you, while you can and while you have a mother [Heloise] skilled in these three languages, to try to perfect their study, so that whenever doubts have arisen about different translations, your examination can resolve them. This study seems appropriately foreshadowed by the very title of the Lord himself on the Cross, written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin so that in his Church everywhere in the tripartite world teaching should abound in these languages in which the Scripture in both testaments is written.
But you will not need long journeys and vast expenses to learn these languages, as the blessed Jerome did, since, as I have said, you have a mother well-trained in their study. Besides virgins and widows, faithful married women offer you incitement to learning, and either counter your negligence or increase your ardor. A distinguished example for you is the venerable Celancia who, wishing to live in marriage according to a rule, anxiously besought Jerome to prescribe such a rule for her. Writing to her later about this, Jerome recalled:
When your letters have urged me to write, I have been embarrassed to hesitate so long over my answer. For you ask, indeed, anxiously and urgently seek, that I prescribe for you from the Holy Scriptures a definite rule by which you may plan the course of your life. In doing this, knowing the will of God, you will prize the supernatural path more than the honors of the world and the appeal of its beauties, and thus you can remain in marriage not only to please your husband but also the Lord, who permits your marriage. He who is not satisfied either by holy petitions or by pious desires, what does he love more than another’s progress? I shall yield to your prayers and when you are ready to fulfill the will of God, I shall strive to hasten his decision.
Abelard to the nuns of the Paraclete:
Perhaps this matron [Celancia] had heard what the Scripture tells us in praise of St. Susanna . After first describing her as very beautiful and God-fearing, it goes on at once to point to the source of this fear and true decorum of spirit, saying: “For her parents were upright; they brought up their daughter according to the law of Moses” (Daniel 13:22). After the trials of marriage and the confusions of worldly life, Susannah was not unmindful of this training, and when she was condemned to death, she did well to condemn her own judges and priests. Indeed, expounding the passage of Daniel that speaks of her parents being just, etc., Jerome himself took occasion to exhort his readers, saying, “This testimony should be used to urge parents to teach the divine word according to the law of God not only to their sons, but also to their daughters.”
Because riches are often most likely to impede the pursuit of both learning and virtue, the example of that exceedingly rich Queen Saba should drive from you all lethargy and negligence. A member of the weaker sex, enduring the vast effort and fatigue of a long journey, with its dangers and very great expenses, she came to the ends of the earth to experience the wisdom of Solomon, and to discuss with him those matters of which she was ignorant. Solomon approved of her effort and study so much that he gave her by way of reward all that she asked, excepting what remained by custom in the possession of the king himself. Many powerful men flocked to listen to his wisdom, and many kings and leaders in the land honored his teaching with great munificence, and not one of them was rewarded as was the woman just mentioned. In this way he showed clearly how much he approved of this woman’s holy zeal and ardent studies, and how he judged them pleasing to the Lord himself. The Lord and true Solomon, indeed, more than Solomon, did not fail to emphasize her learning as a condemnation of men, saying (III Kings, 10.1): “The Queen of the East will rise in judgment and condemn this generation,” etc.
Take care, my dearest sisters, that your own negligence does not condemn you in this generation, since you need not endure the fatigue of a long journey or provide for vast expenses. You have a leader and teacher in your mother [Heloise], who can answer any need, both as an example of virtue and as a teacher of letters. For she is not only learned in Latin literature as well as Hebrew and Greek, but, apparently alone in this age, she enjoys a command of all three languages. This was foretold by the blessed Jerome as a singular grace, most especially praised in the venerable women mentioned earlier. For our instruction these three languages are encompassed by the entire two testaments as a whole. The titles of the Lord are displayed on the Cross in these three languages, that is, inscribed in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. This clearly demonstrates the Lord’s teaching and the praises of Christ and the very mystery of the Trinity, especially in these three languages, in the tripartite breadth of the world, just as it was proclaimed and supported by the wood of the Cross itself on which this title was displayed. It is written (Matt. 18:16): “In the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand.”
In order that the Holy Scripture should be confirmed by the authority of the three languages, and the teaching of each language should be strengthened by the other two, divine providence decreed that both the Old and the New Testament should be encompassed in the three languages. Clearly, since the New Testament surpassed the Old in both dignity and utility, it was the first to be written in the three languages, as if the inscription on the Cross predicted the future. For example, the earliest gospel, according to Matthew, was first written in Hebrew. Paul’s epistle to the Hebrews and that of James to the then dispersed twelve tribes, and likewise the epistle of Peter and, perhaps for the same reason, some others were also written in Hebrew. Who doubts that the three gospels addressed to the Greeks were written in Greek and also certain epistles of Paul and others destined for them, as well as the Apocalypse sent by him to the seven churches? We know that one epistle was written by Paul to the Romans so that we might glory in the little we have in Latin and reflect on how very necessary to us are the teachings of the others [in Hebrew and Greek].
If we strive to know these fully, they must be sought out at the source rather than in the rivulets of translations, especially if these translations produce doubt rather than certainty in the reader. For it is not easy, as we noted, to preserve in translation the idiom proper to each language and to achieve in each a faithful interpretation, so that all is said in every way as fully in a foreign language as it is in our own. When we wish to express in one language something in another, we often fail because we do not have the correct word to express our thought most precisely.
We know that the blessed Jerome, who was among us [Latin Christians] particularly expert in these three languages, sometimes disagreed with much in his own translations and with himself in his commentaries on them. He often made the statement in these commentaries: “this is how it is in Hebrew,” regarding a text that, nevertheless, is not in fact found in his translations from Hebrew, as he himself asserts. When different interpreters disagree among themselves, what wonder, then, if we find one who even disagrees with himself! Anyone, therefore, who wishes to be certain about these matters should not be content with the water from a stream, but should seek and draw out its purity at the source. For this reason the blessed Jerom’s latest translation made from Hebrew and Greek directly, according as he himself had drunk from the sources at their fount, surpasses among us the old translations. “The newest arrivals,” as it is written in the Law, “cast away the old “(Lev. 26:10). For this reason Daniel says, “Many shall be passed over; knowledge shall be manifold” (Dan. 12:4).
Jerome did what he could in his time and was almost alone in his knowledge of foreign languages, but he had a Jewish interpreter on whose assistance he greatly depended, as he himself testified, since he was displeased with many translations. He did not believe that the translations already available were sufficient, and he persevered in his intention, in which, with God’s help, he succeeded, attending to and completing the saying of Ecclesiasticus (1:7): “The streams returned to the fount from which they came and flowed out again.”
The fount and origin, as it were, of scriptural translations is that from which they flow, and translations quickly become false and untrue if they deviate from their origin and are not shown to return in agreement with it. We should not believe that a single interpretation can suffice for all, as if the perfection of knowledge is contained in each, especially in Hebrew, which we regard as superior. We should listen to its testimony, and not presume to impute to it more than it possesses. Jerome wrote about this to Pammachius and Marcella and against his accuser in these words: “We who have at least a little knowledge of Hebrew and are not deficient in Latin speech are better able to judge the other language and to explain what we understand in our own language.” Happy is that soul which, meditating on the law of God night and day, strives to draw on each Scripture at the very source of its fount, like the very purest water, in order that he should not. through ignorance or incapacity. mistake as clear the turbulent waters running through diverse streams, and be forced to vomit what he drinks.
For a long time the study of foreign languages [Greek and Hebrew] has been abandoned by men and, through their neglect, knowledge of letters and literature has perished. What we have lost in men let us recover in women, and to the condemnation of men and the judgment of the stronger sex, let the Queen of the East seek out in you the wisdom of Solomon. To this purpose you can devote greater effort than men since nuns are less burdened by manual labor than men and because of their greater leisure and natural weakness, they yield more easily to dishonorable temptation. This is why, in directing and exhorting women by both words and examples, the teacher Jerome, mentioned earlier, urged you to devote yourselves to the study of letters, especially so that there should never be an occasion to introduce men into the community or with the soul’s intention defeated by the body, for her to wander outside and, leaving her spouse behind, fornicate with the world.

Abelard encourages the nuns in the studies, particularly of the three biblical languages.
Citing McLaughlin: "Often misunderstood and neglected, here in its first English translation, this significant work survives, with the Problemata, in a single manuscript, BNF 14511, dating from the very late fourteenth or early fifteenth century. Formerly Saint-Victor MS 297, the manuscript had come to the abbey as a bequest from its late medieval owner, the scholar and early humanist, Simon de Plumetot, a notable collector of Abelardian works. The second part of the manuscript, containing these two texts, was copied for him; the first part of the manuscript includes several other, briefer writings by Abelard.
Without an epistolary salutation and sometimes designated as a “sermon,” this work in its relation to the correspondence, as well as to the Problemata, has raised questions chiefly concerning the sequence and dating of these texts in the corpus of Abelard’s works for the Paraclete. Largely because the Problemata failed to refer explicitly to Letter 9, its editor, Esme Smits, agreed with Damien van den Eynde in concluding that they should follow Letter 8 directly, with Letter 9 given the last place in this order. A considerably stronger argument can be made, however, for a reversal of these positions and the placement of Letter 9 in a sequence that follows textually, and virtually with interruption, from the last pages of Letter 8. This sequence thus demonstrates the continuing development of major themes in the content and intention of these works for the Paraclete.
Unquestionably the most striking feature of Letter 9 is Abelard’s double dialogue, on the one hand with St. Jerome and, on the other, with the nuns of the Paraclete, to whom he addressed the letter as a whole. Taking up at once the theme with which Letter 8 somewhat abrubtly ends, the example of Paula and Eustochium in the study and teaching of nuns, Abelard began with Jerome’s instructions regarding the education of young girls intended for the religious life. ...
From these early Christian models, Abelard returned to the present and the great opportunity now open to the nuns of the Paraclete, urging, even imploring them to take advantage of Heloise’s singular learning in the three Scriptural languages, Hebrew and Greek as well as Latin."

BNF 14511

PL 178, c.325-36, ep.9. Translation from The Correspondence of Heloise and Abelard and Related Writings, trans. Mary Martin McLaughlin, ed. Bonnie Wheeler, The New Middle Ages (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming), with the generous permission of the translator and the editor.