One day when they were joking together at the end of the lecture, and the students were twitting him with his neglect of the class, he quietly dropped a bomb to the effect that he thought masters of theology were superfluous. With the text and the ordinary glosses any man of fair intelligence could study theology for himself. He was contemptuously invited to give a practical illustration of his theory. Abélard took the sneer seriously, and promised to lecture on any book of Scripture they cared to choose. Continuing the joke, they chose the curious piece of Oriental work that has the title of Ezechiel. Once more Abélard took them seriously, asked for the text and gloss, and invited them to attend his first lecture, on the most abstruse of the prophets, on the following day. Most of them persisted in treating the matter as a joke, but a few appeared at the appointed spot (in Anselm’s own territory) on the following day. They listened in deep surprise to a profound lecture on the prophet from the new and self-consecrated ‘theologus.’ The next day there was a larger audience; the lecture was equally astonishing. In fine, Abélard was soon in full sail as a theological lector of the first rank, and a leakage was noticed in Anselm’s lecture hall. Abélard’s theological success at Laon was brief, if brilliant. Two of the leading scholars, Alberic of Rheims and Lotulphe of Novare, urged Anselm to suppress the new movement at once. Seven years later we shall meet Alberic and Lotulphe playing an important part in the tragedy of Abélard’s life; later still Alberic is found in intimacy with St. Bernard. The episode of Laon must not be forgotten. Probably Anselm needed little urging, with the fate of William of Champeaux fresh in his ears. At all events he gave willing audience to the suggestion that a young master, without due theological training, might at any moment bring the disgrace of heresy on the famous school. He ‘had the impudence to suppress me,’ Abélard has the impudence to say. The students are said to have been much angered by Anselm’s interference, but there was no St. Genevieve at Laon—happily, perhaps,—and Abélard presently departed for Paris, leaving the field to the inglorious ‘Pompey the Great.’ CHAPTER IV THE IDOL OF PARIS