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ABEL—ABENCERRAGES.
dispute by relinquishing this sort of black-mail,’ for-
merly levied by Marocco on European ships in the
Mediterranean. The religious war under Abd-el-
Kader against the French in Algerie involved the
sultan in its movements; but was concluded by the
battle of Isly, 1844, and the subsequent mediation of
England. The piratical habits of his subjects have
since brought A. to the brink of war with more than
one Huropean state. The sultan is a zealous
Mussulman, without the wild fanaticism common
among his countrymen ; as a ruler, he is strict, and
often cruel. His eldest son, Sidi-Mohammed (b.
1803), is heir to the throne.
ABEL appears in the book of Genesis as the
second son of Adam, and a shepherd. He was slain
by his elder brother Cain, under the influence of
jealousy, because the offering of the latter had been
rejected by Jehovah, and that of the former accepted.
It is not said in Genesis, why Jehovah accepted
the sacrifice of Abel; but the Saviour, in the New
Testament, speaks of ‘righteous Abel, from which
it is concluded that there dwelt in him a spivit of
faith or trust in the unseen God, of which his
brother was destitute. The writer of the Epistle to
the Hebrews opens his enumeration of the ¢faithful’
in the 11th chapter of Hebrews, with these words :
‘By faith Abel offered unto God, a more excellent
sacrifice than Cain.” Such, also, has been in all ages
the universal opinion of the Christian Church, which
has regarded Abel as a type of innocence and faith,
ABEL, CaARLES FREDERICK, a native of Ccethen,
in Germany, born in 1719, was a distinguished musi-
cian. He was a pupil of Sebastian Bach, and for
some years a member of the famous Dresden band of
the Elector of Saxony, king of Poland. In 1758,
when nearly forty years of age, he came to England
in a state of great destitution; but his talents were
quickly recognised. He was appointed chamber-
musician to the queen of George [II. His peculiar
instrument, the wola da gamba, a small violoncello,
with six strings, was never played by any one in
equal perfection. He also obtained considerable
reputation as a composer, though his pieces are not
now held in very great estimation. He died in 1787,
having shortened his life by his intemperate habits.
ABELARD, PrrER, a scholastic philosopher and
theologian, unquestionably the boldest thinker of
the 12th c., was born in France, in 1079, at Paletz or
Pallet, not far from Nantes, a village which belonged
to his parents, Beranger and Lucie. An irrepres-
sible thirst for knowledge, and a special pleasure
in scholastic logic, moved him to resign his rights
of primogeniture in favour of his younger brothers.
He left Bretagne for Paris, in order to hear the pre-
lections of William of Champeaux, but soon incurred
the hatred of his master, whom he puzzled by his
wonderful subtlety. He fled to Melun, and after-
wards to Corbeil, persecuted and admired wherever
he went. He then returned home for the restoration
of his health. With renewed strength, he returned
to Parig, reconciled himself with his opponents, and
moulded, by his influence as a lecturer, some of the
most distinguished men of his age, amongst whom
were the future Pope Celestine I1.; Peter Lombard ;
Berengar, his future apologist; and Arnold of
Brescia. At this time, there lived in Paris, Heloise,
the niece of the Canon Fulbert, then seventeen years
of age, and already remarkable for her beauty, talents,
and knowledge. - She soon kindled in the breast of
A., then thirty-eight years old, a violent and over-
whelming passion, which was returned by Heloise
with no less fervour. By means of Fulbert, A.
became teacher and companion of Heloise, and the
lovers were happy together until A.’s ardent poetical
effusions reached the ears of the canon. He sought
to separate the lovers; but it was too late. They
fled together to the country, where Heloise bore a
son, and was privately married to A., with the
consent of her uncle. Not long after, Heloise
returned to Fulbert’s house, and denied the mar-
riage, that her love might be no hinderance to A.’s
advancement in the church. Enraged at this, and ab
a second flight which she took with her lover,
Fulbert, in order to make him canonically incapable
of ecclesiastical preferment, caused A. to be emascu-
lated. In deephumiliation, A.entered as a monk the
abbey of St'Denis, and induced Heloise to take the
veil at Argenteuil. But the lectures which he began
to give soon after exposed him to new persecutions.
The synod of Soissons (1121) declared his opinions on
the Trinity to be heretical. He left St Denis, and
built at Nogent-on-the-Seine a chapel and hermitage
called Paraclete, which, after being enlarged by his
scholars to a monastic foundation, he, on his appoint-
ment as abbot of St-Gildas-de-Ruys, in Bretagne, gave
over to Heloise and her sisterhood for a dwelling. His
residence in St-Gildas was imbittered by a continued
struggle against his love, and by the hatred of the
monks ; till at last, in 1140, his doctrine was con-
demned by Pope Innocent I1I., and he was ordered
to be imprisoned. But Peter the Venerable, abbot
of Clugny, after A. had retracted his opinions on
the Trinity and Redemption, reconciled him to his
enemies. A. died with the reputation of a model of
monastic propriety, on April 21, 1142, in the abbey
of St Marcel, not far from Chalons-on-the-Sadne.
Heloise had him interred at the Paraclete, hoping one
day to lie by his side. She survived A. twenty years.
The ashes of both were taken to Paris in 1808, and
in 1828 were buried in one sépulchre in Pere la Chaise.
—The doctrines advanced by A. in his controversy
with St Bernhard, have a decidedly rationalist tend-
ency; and he, and his predecessor Frigena, may
be looked upon as the first avowed representatives
of that school. A. laid down the principle, that
nothing is to be believed but what has been
first understood ; while the church held that we
must believe in order to understand ; and Bernhard
was for banishing inquiry altogether from the pro-
vince of religion. In judging of A.s merits, we
are not to look so much to his writings, as to the
influence which his wonderful power of public dis-
putation enabled him to exercise on his age. His
character, no less than his doctrine, gave great
offence. Until recently, it is chiefly the romantic
history of his love that has occupied attention.
The chief biography that has appeared is that by
Rémusat, under the title of 4. (2 vols., Par. 1845),
containing his life, character, writings, and opi-
nions. The Latin writings and letters of A. and
Heloise were collected by Amboise, and published
by Duchesne (Par. 1616). Some works of A. have
been recently discovered; among others Sic et
Non, a collection of doctrinal contradictions from
the Fathers; they have been published partly by
Cousin (Par. 1836), partly by Rheinwald' (Berl.
1831).
ABELE. See PoPLAR.
ABELITES, a Christian sect of the 4th c.,
found chiefly in the neighbourhood of Hippo, in
North Africa. Their chief distinction consisted in
marrying but abstaining from matrimonial inter-
course, in order not to propagate original sin. They
held that Abel so lived, because the Bible mentions
no children of his.
ABELMOSCHUS. See HEBISCUS.
ABENCERRAGES, a noble Moorish race whose
struggles with the family of the Zegris, and tragical
destruction in the royal palace of the Alhambra,
in Granada, in the time of Abu-Hassan (146161—84),
