Abelard to Heloise

Abstract

If, since our conversion from the world to God, I have never written you a letter to comfort or encourage you, this should not be attributed to my negligence but to your prudence. I did not consider my help necessary for one upon whom the divine grace has so lavishly bestowed all that she needs. By your words and your example you are able to teach those who are in error, to strengthen the fainthearted, to exhort the lukewarm, as you have long been accustomed to do since you became prioress under the abbess.¹ If you watch over your daughters as carefully now as you watched over your sisters then, I consider it sufficient and I regard any teaching or encouragement on my part as superfluous. But if to you in your humility it seems otherwise, and you need me to instruct you and write to you concerning matters that pertain to God, tell me what you want, so that I may write to you again, according as the Lord may grant me.

To Heloise, his dearly beloved sister in Christ, from Abelard, her brother in the same.