This translation of Peter Abelard's Sic et Non is based on the critical edition of that work by Blanche Boyer and Richard McKeon. The translation itself is sound enough, if not always elegant. Unfortunately the volume offers no introduction to help students understand the Sic et Non, which Abelard developed over many years. While any serious attempt to use translations to bring Abelard's theological writing to the attention of a wide audience is to be commended, the lack of any introduction to guide the student how best to profit from this anthology is to be regretted.
While Abelard was not the first author of such a compilation of patristic excerpts on a range of doctrinal topics, his prologue about why it was necessary to apply critical reasoning to the diversity of doctrinal formulations within Christian orthodoxy was profoundly original. All students of medieval culture should be introduced to Abelard's prologue as a succinct formulation of scholastic method, expressed with a degree of audacity not often found among medieval authors. Yet we learn nothing about the range of versions in which the work survives. The translation offered is of the longest version of 158 debatable propositions, the first section of which is mostly about faith in God and God's self revelation to humanity (1-58). There are then questions about the incarnation and redemption, together with the early history of the Church (59-106); the sacraments (107-135); and charity as the foundation of a moral life (136-158). It would be helpful to have a translation of Abelard's Sententie in which his response to many of these questions was recorded by students. Yet having easy access to a translation of all the texts that Abelard includes may encourage readers to think about the particular issues and solutions under debate. By selective quotation of interesting texts (some of which were relatively little known), Abelard is able to point the reader in a preferred direction. Certain of the questions had particular relevance to his own situation: "Faith must not be applied by human rationality" (a slightly unusual translation of Quod fides humanis rationibus sit astruenda); "all the apostles except John had wives...not" (103); "No human sexual intercourse can be without fault...or some can be" (130); "No one is allowed to marry a woman with whom he'd fornicated...or he is" (131).
Given that so many of these patristic texts are otherwise inaccessible to students without Latin, it is excellent that they should have at least initial access to the fertile discussions that Abelard found so interesting. Given that the Boyer-McKeon edition may not be universally available to students, this translation may provide a much cheaper port of call, at least to begin with. Yet the absence of any of the valuable indices found in the critical edition can only be regretted. Among other things, they enable the student to observe what excerpts are culled from authorities like Ivo of Chartres, and which ones may be original to Abelard (although this is still an ongoing task for specialists). The allusions to patristic sources (not to ignore a few precious classical sources to which Abelard was particularly attached) are given as they are found in the Boyer-McKeon edition, now some thirty years old. No mention is made whenever Abelard refers to one of these excerpts in any of his theological writings. Such deficiencies can only be regretted. Nonetheless, if the translation awakens any student's interest in the complexities of medieval theology, as well as in the questions Abelard thought fit to ask, the task of translation is still worthwhile.