The story runs that these works chanced to intrude on the pious meditations of a mystic theologian of the name of William of St. Thierry. William was very nearly a saint, and the new theology shocked him inexpressibly. He had been abbot of St. Thierry at Rheims, but had been elevated from the Benedictine level to the Cistercian under Bernard’s influence, and was peacefully composing a commentary on the highly mystical ‘Song of Songs,’ in the Cistercian monastery at Signy, when Abélard’s heresies reached him.[26] In his horror he selected thirteen definite heretical statements from the books, and sent them, with the treatises, to his pious and powerful friend, Bernard of Clairvaux, with a pressing request to examine them and take action. Bernard replied that a cursory perusal of the books seemed to justify his follower’s zeal. He would put the matter aside until after Holy Week, then talk it over with William. In the meantime William must bear patiently with his inactivity, since he ‘had hitherto known little or nothing of these things.’ Easter over, and the conference having presumably taken place, Bernard was convinced of Abélard’s errors. Faithful to Christ’s direction, he went up to Paris, and personally reproved his erring brother, without witnesses. Bernard’s biographer (and secretary-monk) assures that Abélard promised to amend his ways. The amendment not taking place, Bernard paid him a second brotherly visit, and, as he refused to comply, Bernard followed out the evangelical direction of reproving him before others. He attacked him in the presence of his students, warning the latter that they must burn his heretical writings forthwith. It is one of the scenes in Abélard’s career which it would have been interesting to have witnessed. [26] A good idea of the man, and of the rapidly growing school he belonged to, will be formed from the opening sentence of one of his treatises: ‘Rotting in the lake of misery and in the mire of filth, and stuck in the mud of the abyss that has no substance, and from the depths of my grief, I cry out to Thee, O Lord.’ He was in the midst of a similar Bernardesque composition when he received Abélard’s works. However, we must defer for a moment the continuation of the Bernardist version of the encounter, and examine the course of events more critically.