Sic et non

Introduction

A Latin collection of about 150 theological questions – on God, sin, the sacraments and more – under each of which Abelard lists quotations from the Bible and the Church Fathers that answer “yes” and quotations that answer “no”. He does not resolve the contradictions himself. Instead the prologue gives rules for doing so: check whether the text has been corrupted, whether an author later retracted a view, and whether the same word is used in different senses. It contains the sentence “By doubting we come to inquiry; by inquiry we perceive the truth.” The method shaped twelfth-century textbooks such as Gratian’s Decretum and Peter Lombard’s Sentences.

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