Hence it is not surprising that Abélard’s newfound peace was soon disturbed by rumours of the lodging of complaints against him in high quarters. The Archbishop of Rheims, Ralph the Green, began to be assailed with charges. In the first place, he was reminded, it was uncanonical for a monk to give lectures, and take up a permanent residence, outside his monastery; moreover, the said monk was most unmonastically engaged in reading Aristotle, with a flavour of Vergil, Ovid, and Lucan. Raoul le Vert probably knew enough about St. Denis not to attempt to force Abélard to return to it. Then the grumblers—‘chiefly those two early intriguers,’ says the victim—urged that Abélard was teaching without a ‘respondent’; but the archbishop still found the pretext inadequate. Then, at length, came the second great cloud, the accusation of heresy. The convert had now made theology his chief object of study. The students who gathered about him in his village priory loudly demanded a resumption of the lectures on dialectics and rhetoric, but Abélard had really passed to a new and wholly religious outlook. He complied with the request, only with a secret intention that, as he states in the ‘Story,’ philosophy should be used as a bait in the interest of divinity. The religious welfare of his followers now seriously concerned him. It will be seen presently that he exercised a strict control over their morals, and it was from the purest of motives that he endeavoured, by a pious diplomacy, to direct their thoughts to the study of Holy Writ. His rivals and enemies have attempted to censure him for this casting of pearls before swine. Certainly there were dangers accompanying the practice, but these were not confined to Abélard’s school. We can easily conceive the disadvantage of discussing the question, for instance, _utrum Maria senserit dolorem vel delectationem in Christo concipiendo_? before a crowd of twelfth century students. However, Abélard’s attitude was wholly reverent, and his intention as pure as that of St. Anselm.