The beginning was in the Carolingian time, when Rabanus compiled his authorities from sources sacred and profane, scarcely discriminating except to maintain the pre-eminence of the sacred matter. His younger contemporary, Eriugena, was a translator of his own chief source, Pseudo-Dionysius, him of the _Hierarchies_, Celestial and Ecclesiastical. Yet he composed also a veritable book, _De divisione naturae_, in which he put his matter together organically and with argument. And while professing to hold to the authority of Scripture and the Fathers, he not only took upon himself to select from their statements, but propounded the proposition that the authority which is not confirmed by reason appears weak. Eriugena made his authorities yield him what his reason required. His argumentative method became an independent rehandling of matter drawn from them. It was very different from the plodding excerpt-gathering of Rabanus. We pass down the centuries to Anselm. Contemplative and religious, his reverence for authority was unimpaired by any conscious need to refashion its meaning. Though he possessed creative intellectual powers, they were incited and controlled by his deep piety. Hence his works were constructed of original and lofty arguments, but such as did not infringe upon either the efficient or the final priority of faith. With Abaelard of many-sided fame the duality of method becomes explicit, and is, if one may say so, set by the ears. On the one hand, he advances in his constructive theological treatises toward a portentous application of reason to explain the contents of the Christian Faith; on the other, somewhat sardonically, he devises a scheme for the employment and presentation of authorities upon these sacred matters, a scheme so obviously apt that once made known it could not but be followed and perfected.