Elias knew him for a good man.”
“The good who go astray into wrong paths do more harm than the evil, who are our open enemies,” said Canon Gerbert sharply. “It is the enemy within who betrays the fortress.”
Now that, thought Cadfael, rings true of Church thinking. A Seljuk Turk or a Saracen can cut down Christians in battle or throw stray pilgrims into dungeons, and still be tolerated and respected, even if he’s held to be already damned. But if a Christian steps a little aside in his beliefs he becomes anathema. He had seen it years ago in the east, in the admittedly beleaguered Christian churches. Hard-pressed by enemies, it was on their own they turned most savagely. Here at home he had never before encountered it, but it might yet come to be as common as in Antioch or Alexandria. Not, however, if Radulfus could rein it in.
“His own priest does not seem to have regarded William as an enemy, either within or without,” said the abbot mildly. “But Deacon Serlo here is about to tell us what he recalls of the contention, and it is only just that you should afterward speak as to your master’s mind before his death, in assurance that he is worthy to be buried here within the precinct.”
“Speak up!” said Gerbert as Serlo hesitated, dismayed and unhappy at what he had set in motion. “And be precise! On what heads was fault found with the man’s beliefs?”
“There were certain small points at issue,” Serlo said submissively, “as I remember it. Two in particular, besides his doubts concerning the baptism of infants. He had difficulty in comprehending the Trinity
“
Who does not! thought Cadfael. if it were comprehensible, all these interpreters of the good God would be out of an occupation. And every one of those denies the interpretation set up by every other.
“He said if the first was Father, and the second Son, how could they be co-eternal and co-equal? And as to the Spirit, he could not see how it could be equal with either Father or Son if it emanated from them. Moreover, he saw no need for a third, creation, salvation, and all things complete in Father and Son. Thus the third served only to satisfy the vision of those who think in threes, as the songmakers and the soothsayers do, and all those who deal with enchantment.”
“He said that of the Church?” Gerbert’s countenance was stiff and his brow black.
“Not of the Church, no, that I do not believe he ever said. And the Trinity is a most high mystery, many have difficulty with it.”
“It is not for them to question or reason with inadequate minds, but to accept with unquestioning faith. Truth is set before them, they have only to believe. It is the perverse and perilous who have the arrogance to bring mere fallible reason to bear on what is ineffable. Go on! Two points, you said. What is the second?”
Serb cast an almost apologetic glance at Radulfus, and an even more rapid and uneasy one at Elave, who all this time was staring upon him with knotted brows and thrusting jaw, not yet committed to fear or anger or any other emotion, simply waiting and listening.
“It arose out of this same matter of the Father and the Son. He said that if they were of one and the same substance, as the creed calls them consubstantial, then the entry of the Son into humankind must mean also the entry of the Father, taking to himself and making divine that which he had united with the godhead. And therefore the Father and the Son alike knew the suffering and the death and the resurrection, and as one partake in our redemption.”
“It is the Patripassian heresy!” cried Gerbert, outraged. “Sabellius was excommunicated for it, and for other his errors. Noetus of Smyrna preached it to his ruin. This is indeed a dangerous venture. No wonder the priest warned him of the pit he was digging for his own soul.”
“Howbeit,” Radulfus reminded the assembly firmly, “the man, it seems, listened to counsel and undertook the pilgrimage, and as to the probity of his life, nothing has been alleged against it. We are concerned, not with what he speculated upon seven years and more ago, but with his spiritual well-being at his death. There is but one witness here who can testify as to that. Now let us hear from his servant and companion.” He turned to look closely at Elave, whose face had set into controlled and conscious awareness, not of danger, but of deep offense. “Speak for your master,” said Radulfus quietly, “for you knew him to the end. What was his manner of life in all that long journey?”
“He was regular in observance everywhere,” said Elave, “and made his confession where he could. There was no fault found with him in any land. In the Holy City we visited all the most sacred places, and going and returning we lodged whenever we could in abbeys and priories, and everywhere my master was accepted for a good and pious man, and paid his way honestly, and was well regarded.”
“But had he renounced his views,” demanded Gerbeit, “and recanted his heresy? Or did he still adhere secretly to his former errors?”
“Did he ever speak with you about these things?” the abbot asked, overriding the intervention.
“Very seldom, my lord, and I did not well understand such deep matters. I cannot answer for another man’s mind, only for his conduct, which I knew to be virtuous.” Elave’s face had set into contained and guarded calm. He did not look like a man who would fall short in understanding of deep matters, or lack the interest to consider them.
“And in his last illness,” Radulfus pursued mildly, “he asked for a priest?”
“He did, Father, and made his confession and received absolution without question. He died with all the due rites of the Church. Wherever there was place and time along the way he made his confession, especially after he first fell ill, and we were forced to stay a whole month in the monastery at Saint Marcel before he was fit to continue the journey home. And there he often spoke with the brothers, and all these matters of faith and doubt were understood and tolerated among them. I know he spoke openly of things that troubled him, and they found no fault there with debating all manner of questions concerning holy things.”
Canon Gerbert stared cold suspicion. “And where was this place, this Saint Marcel? And when was it you spent a month there? How recently?”
“It was in the spring of last year. We left early in the May, and made the pilgrimage from there to Saint James at Compostela with a party from Cluny, to give thanks that my master was restored to health. Or so we thought then, but he was never in real health again, and we had many halts thereafter. Saint Marcel is close by Chalon on the Saone. It is a daughter house of Cluny.”
Gerbert sniffed loudly and turned up his masterful nose at the mention of Cluny. That great house had taken seriously to the pilgrim traffic and had given aid and support, protection along the roads, and shelter in their houses
