Whether Bernard formally accepted the summons or not, therefore, authentic information was conveyed to both sides that the debate would take place. It will be readily imagined how profoundly stirred the kingdom of France would be over such an expectation. The bare qualities of the antagonists put the discussion leagues above any remembered or contemporary event in the scholastic world; the object of the debate—the validity of the new thought that was rapidly infecting the schools—was a matter of most material concern. Deutsch has a theory of the conflict which seems to be only notable as an illustration of the profundity of the Teutonic mind. He opines there may have been a political struggle underlying the academic demonstration. Louis was just beginning his struggle with Rome over the vexed question of investitures, and it is conceivable that the Abélardists leaned to the side of the king, in opposition to Bernard and the ‘ultramontanes.’ It is conceivable, but not at all probable. Abélard’s sermon on St. Peter indicates a really ultramontane sentiment; moreover, he has ever kept aloof from the political side of life. His follower, Arnold of Brescia, would be likely enough to fall in with any such regal design. Arnold was a young Luther, of premature birth. Born in Italy at the beginning of the twelfth century, he had travelled to France, and studied under Abélard, at an early age. He returned to Italy, and assumed the monastic habit. An enthusiastic idealist and a man of proportionate energy and audacity, he soon entered upon a fiery crusade against the sins of the monks, the clergy, and the hierarchy. He was driven from Italy in 1139, then from Switzerland, and he had just taken refuge in Paris when Bernard started his campaign. Since one of his most prominent theories was that the higher clergy should be stripped of all temporal privileges and possessions, his place is easily determined on the question of investitures. However, it is most unlikely that he should have dragged Abélard into these semi-political and dangerous questions. And although Bernard most sedulously urges the association of the hated Arnold with Abélard in his letters to Rome, he never mentions a suspicion of such a coalition as Deutsch suggests; nor, in fine, does the conduct of the secular arm give the least countenance to the theory. The conflict was inevitable, without the concurrence of any political intrigue. Abélard and Bernard were the natural representatives of schools which could no longer lie down in peace in the fold of the Church. Abélard foresaw disaster to the Church in the coming age of restless inquiry unless its truths could be formulated in his intellectual manner. Bernard was honestly convinced that Abélard was ‘preparing the way for Anti-Christ.’ And it followed as a further consequence that Bernard should wish to avoid the discussion to which Abélard looked for salvation from the menace of the mystical school.