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Abelard’s treatise on ethics, also known by its subtitle Scito te ipsum (Know Yourself), written late in his career. It begins by defining moral qualities as vices or virtues of the mind that incline us to bad or good actions, distinguishing them from bodily qualities and from mental capacities such as memory or quickness of wit. The chapters then separate vice from sin, define sin as consent to what is wrong, discuss the suggestions of demons, and ask why outward acts are punished rather than inward fault, along with questions on ignorance, penance, and confession.
The Ethica is the central statement of Abelard’s ethics of intention: moral worth lies in the agent’s consent and intention, not in the external deed or in desire as such. The sample illustrates its consequences, arguing that those who crucified Christ in ignorance were excused from guilt though not from temporal penalty. Such positions drew criticism in his lifetime and featured among the charges raised against him in 1140–1141. The work survives incomplete and remains a standard text for the history of medieval moral philosophy.
About this edition. The Latin text comes from Corpus Corporum, the Latin text repository of the University of Zurich (edition: Jacques-Paul Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 178, Parisiis 1855), reused with attribution for non-commercial purposes (CC BY-NC-SA). Every word has been analyzed with LatinCy, a neural language model for Latin — click or tap any word for its dictionary form, part of speech, and complete morphology, together with the full entry from Lewis & Short’s A Latin Dictionary.