{{Infobox Archbishop of Canterbury| | Full name = Saint Anselm of Canterbury | image = | birth_name = | began = 1093 | term_end = April 21 1109 | predecessor = Lanfranc | successor = Ralph d'Escures | birth_date = 1033| birthplace = Aosta, Burgundy | death_date = April 21, 1109 | deathplace = Canterbury, Kent | tomb = Canterbury Cathedral, Canterbury, Kent |}<noinclude>} Saint Anselm of Canterbury (1033 – April 21 1109) was an Italian medieval philosopher, theologian, and church official who held the office of Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109. Called the founder of scholasticism, he is famous as the originator of the ontological argument for the existence of God and as the archbishop who openly opposed the Crusades.

Anselm was born in the city of Aosta in the Kingdom of Burgundy (currently the capital of Aosta Valley region of northern Italy). His family was accounted noble, and owned considerable property. Gundulph, his father, was by birth a Lombard, and seems to have been a man of harsh and violent temper. His mother, Ermenberga, was known as a prudent and virtuous woman, and gave the young Anselm careful religious training.

At the age of fifteen, Anselm desired to enter a monastery, but he could not obtain his father's consent. Disappointment brought on an apparent psychosomatic illness, and after he recovered, Anselm gave up his studies for a time and lived a more carefree life. During this period his mother died, and his father's harshness became unbearable. In 1059 he left home, crossed the Alps, and wandered through Burgundy and France. Attracted by the fame of his countryman Lanfranc, then prior of the Benedictine Abbey of Bec, Anselm entered Normandy. The following year, after spending some time at Avranches, he entered the abbey as a novice at the age of twenty-seven.

In 1063, Lanfranc was made the abbot of Caen, and Anselm was elected prior of Bec. He held this office for fifteen years until, in 1078, the death of the warrior monk, Herluin, founder and first abbot of Bec, resulted in Anselm's election to abbot. Under his jurisdiction, Bec became the first seat of learning in Europe, although Anselm appears to have been less interested in attracting external students to it. It was during these quiet years at Bec that Anselm wrote his first philosophical works, the Monologion and Proslogion. These were followed by The Dialogues on Truth, Free Will, and the Fall of the Devil.



The monastery grew in wealth and reputation, and after the Norman Conquest, acquired a large amount of property in England. As abbot, Anselm had a duty to visit this property occasionally. He became popular among the citizens of England because of his mild temper and unswerving rectitude, and he was considered by many to be a natural successor to Lanfranc as Archbishop of Canterbury. Upon Lanfranc's death, however, King William II seized the possessions and revenues of the see, and made no new appointment. In 1092, at the invitation of Hugh, Earl of Chester, Anselm crossed to England. He was detained there by business for nearly four months, and when about to return to Bec, he was refused permission by the king. In the following year, King William fell ill. He was eager to make atonement for his failure to appoint a new archbishop, and he nominated Anselm to the vacant see. After a great struggle with Anselm, King William compelled him to accept the pastoral staff of office. After obtaining dispensation from his duties in Normandy, Anselm was consecrated as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1093.

For his retaining office, Anselm demanded certain conditions of King William: that he return the possessions of the see, accept Anselm's spiritual counsel, and acknowledge Urban II as pope, in opposition to Antipope Clement III. He only obtained a partial consent to the first of these demands, and the last involved him in a serious difficulty with the king. The Church's rule stated that metroplitans could not be consecrated without receiving the pallium from the hands of the pope. Anselm, accordingly, insisted that he must proceed to Rome to receive the pall. King William would not permit this, however; he had not acknowledged Urban as pope, and he maintained his right to prevent a pope's acknowledgment by an English subject without his permission. A council of churchmen and nobles was held to settle the matter, and it advised Anselm to submit to the king. However, Anselm remained firm and the matter was postponed. During this time, William privately sent messengers to Rome, who acknowledged Urban and prevailed on him to send a legate to the king bearing the archiepiscopal pall. Anselm and King William partially reconciliated, and the matter of the pall was decided. It was not given by the king, but was laid on the altar at Canterbury, where Anselm received it.

Over a year later, Anselm encountered more trouble with King William, and resolved to proceed to Rome and seek the counsel of the pope. He obtained with great difficulty King William's permission to leave, and in October 1097 he set out for Rome. William immediately seized the revenues of the see, retaining them until his death. Anselm was received with high honour by Urban at the Siege of Capua, where he garnered high praise also from the Saracen troops of Count Roger I of Sicily. The pope, however, did not wish to become deeply involved in Anselm's dispute with William.

At a great council held at Bari, Anselm was asked to defend the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Ghost against the representatives of the Greek Church. Anselm left Rome, and spent some time at the little village of Schiavi, where he finished his treatise on the atonement, Cur Deus homo, and then retired to Lyons. When he attempted to return to England, King William would not allow him to enter the country.

King William was killed in 1100 and his successor, Henry I, invited Anselm to return to England under certain conditions. He demanded that Anselm receive from him, in person, investiture in his office of archbishop. The papal rule, however, stated that all homage and lay investiture were strictly prohibited. Henry refused to relinquish the privilege possessed by his predecessors, and proposed that the matter should be laid before the pope. Two embassies were sent to Pope Pascal II regarding Henry’s legitimacy of investiture, but he reaffirmed the papal rule both times. However, Henry remained firm, and in 1103, Anselm himself and an envoy from the king set out for Rome. Paschal II again ruled in favor of the papal rule, and passed a sentence of excommunication against all who had infringed the law, except King Henry.

Because he was forbidden to return to England unless on the king's terms, Anselm withdrew to Lyons after this ruling and waited for further action from Pope Paschal. In 1105, Paschal did act, and excommunicated King Henry. Henry, seriously alarmed, responded by arranging a meeting with Paschal and a reconciliation was established. In 1106 Anselm was permitted to cross to England, with authority from the pope to remove the sentence of excommunication from the illegally invested churchmen.

By 1107 the long dispute regarding investiture was finally settled with a compromise in the Concordat of London. In this, Henry relinquished his right to invest his bishops and abbots, but reserved the custom of requiring them to do homage for the "temporalities" (the landed properties tied to the episcopate). The remaining two years of Anselm’s life were spent in the duties of his archbishopric. He died on April 21 1109.

Anselm is considered by many to be the first scholarly philosopher of Christian theology. His only great predecessor, Scotus Eriugena, was more speculative and mystical in his writings than what is considered scholarly. Anselm’s writings represent a recognition of the relationship of reason to revealed truth, and an attempt to elaborate a rational system of faith.

Anselm sought to understand Christian consciousness through reason, and to develop intelligible truths interwoven with the Christian belief. He believed that the necessary preliminary for this is the possession of the Christian consciousness. He wrote: "Neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intelligam. Nam et hoc credo, quia, nisi credidero, non intelligam." ("Nor do I seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe that I may understand. For this too I believe, that unless I first believe, I shall not understand.") According to Anselm, after faith is found, the attempt must be made to demonstrate by reason the truth of what is believed.

The groundwork of Anselm's theory of knowledge is contained in the tract De Veritate, where he affirms the existence of an absolute truth, in which all other truth participates. This absolute truth, Anselm argues, is God, who is therefore the ultimate ground or principle both of things and of thought. By this, the notion of God becomes the foreground of Anselm’s theory; it is necessary, then, to first make God clear to reason and be demonstrated to have real existence.

Anselm wrote many philosophical proofs within his works, Monologion and Proslogion. In the first proof, Anselm relies on the ordinary grounds of realism, coinciding to some extent with the theory of Augustine. Anselm argues that “things” are called good in a variety of ways and degrees, and this would be impossible if there were not some absolute standard, some good in itself, in which all relative goods participate. Similarly, with such adjectives as great, just, etc.; things involve a certain greatness and justice. Anselm uses this thought process to state that the very existence of things is impossible without some one Being, by whom they come to exist. This absolute Being, this goodness, justice, greatness, is God. Anselm is not thoroughly satisfied with this reasoning, however, because it begins from a posteriori grounds, meaning that the reasoning is inductive. The philosophy also contains several converging lines of proof.

Anselm desired to have one short demonstration, which he presents in his Proslogion. The Proslogian is his famous proof of the existence of God, referred to as the ontological argument - a term first applied by Kant to the arguments of seventeenth and eighteenth century rationalists. Anselm's defined his belief in the existence of God using the phrase, “that than which nothing greater can be conceived”. He reasoned that if “that than which nothing greater can be conceived” existed only in the intellect, it would not be “that than which nothing greater can be conceived”, since it can be thought to exist in reality, which is greater. It follows, according to Anselm, that “that than which nothing greater can be conceived” must exist in reality. The bulk of the Proslogion is taken up with Anselm's attempt to establish the identity of that than which nothing greater can be conceived as God, and thus to establish that God exists in reality.

Anselm's ontological proof has been the subject of controversy since it was first published in the 1070s. It was opposed at the time by the monk Gaunilo, in his Liber pro Insipiente, on the ground that humans cannot pass from intellect to reality. Anselm replied to the objections in his Responsio. The same criticism made by Gaunilo is made by several later philosophers; among them are Aquinas and Kant. Anselm also authored a number of other arguments for the existence of God, based on cosmological and teleological grounds.

In Anselm’s other works, he strove to state the rational grounds of the Christian doctrines of creation and the Trinity. He discusses the Trinity first by stating that human beings cannot know God from himself, but only through analogy. The analogy he uses is the self-consciousness of man. The peculiar double nature of consciousness, memory and intelligence, represent the relation of the Father to the Son. The mutual love of these two (memory and intelligence) proceeding from the relation they hold to one another symbolizes the Holy Spirit. The further theological doctrines of man, such as original sin and free will, are developed in the Monologion and other treatises.

In Cur Deus Homo ("Why did God become Man?"), Anselm undertook to explain the rational necessity of the Christian mystery of the atonement. His philosophy rests on three positions: first, that satisfaction is necessary on account of God's honor and justice; second, that such satisfaction can be given only by the peculiar personality of the God-man Jesus; and third, that such satisfaction is really given by the voluntary death of this God-man Jesus.

Anselm expounds on these three positions by beginning with the statement that all actions of men are for the Glory of God, and if sin exists (if God’s honor is wounded), man himself can give no satisfaction. But God’s justice, according to Anselm, demands satisfaction. However, because God is infinite, any wound to his honor must also be infinite, and it follows that satisfaction must also be infinite, i.e., it must outweigh all that is not God. Because humans are not infinite, such an act of satisfaction can only be paid by God himself, and, as a penalty for man, it must be paid under the form of man. By this, Anselm reasons that satisfaction is only possible through the sinless God-man. Because he is exempt from the punishment of sin; the God-man’s passion is voluntary. The merit of the act is therefore infinite, God's justice is thus appeased, and His mercy may extend to man.

This theory has exercised immense influence on church doctrine, providing the basis for the Roman Catholic concept of the treasury of merit and the evangelical doctrine of penal substitution as developed by John Calvin. Anselm’s philosophy is very different from older patristic philosophies, insofar as it focuses on a contest between the goodness and justice of God, rather than a contest between God and Satan. However, critics of Anselm assert that he puts the whole conflict on a merely legal footing, giving it no ethical bearing, and neglects altogether the consciousness of the individual to be redeemed. In this respect it contrasts unfavorably with the later theory of Peter Abélard.

Anselm wrote many letters to monks, male relatives and others that contained passionate expressions of attachment and affection. These letters were typically addressed "dilecto dilectori," sometimes translated as "to the beloved lover." While there is wide agreement that Anselm was personally committed to the monastic ideal of celibacy, some academics, including Brian P. McGuire</bgref> and John Boswell have characterized these writings as expressions of a homosexual inclination. Others, such as Glenn Olsen and Richard Southern describe them as representing a "wholly spiritual" affection, "nourished by an incorporeal ideal" (Southern).

He was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church in 1494 by Alexander VI. The anniversary of Anselm’s death on 21 April is celebrated in the Roman Catholic Church, much of The Anglican Communion, and the Lutheran Church as Anselm's memorial day. Anselm was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in 1720 by Pope Clement XI. Eight hundred years after his death, on 21 April 1909, Pope Pius X issued an encyclical Communion Rerum praising Anselm, his ecclesiastical career, and his writings. His symbol in hagiography is the ship, representing the spiritual independence of the church.

In the Middle Ages, Anselm's writings did not receive the respect they later would. This may have been due to their unsystematic character, for they are generally tracts or dialogues on detached questions, not elaborate treatises like the works of Aquinas, Albert of Aix, and Erigena. Proponents of his writing, however, enjoy what they call his freshness and philosophical vigor.

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References listed in the 1911 Britannica article:
* Eadmer's Vita Anselmi and his Historia Novorum, edited by Martin Rule in Rolls Series (London, 1884) * Philibert Ragey, Histoire de Saint Anselme (Paris, 1890), and Saint Anselme professeur (Paris, 1890) * Johann Adam Möhler, Anselm Erzbischof von Canterbury (Regensburg, 1839; Eng. trans. by Henry Rymer, London, 1842) * Friedrich Rudolf Hasse, Anselm von Canterbury (2 vols., Leipzig, 1842-1853) * C. de Rémusat, S. Anselme de Cantorbéry (Paris, 1853, new ed. 1868) * R. W. Church, St. Anselm, first published in Sunday Library (London, 1870; often reprinted) * Martin Rule, Life and Times of St. Anselm (London, 1883). * Dom Gerberon S. Anselmi opera omnia, necnon Eadmeri monachi Cantuar. Historia Novorum et alia opuscula Paris, (1675); edition of Anselms's works; reprinted with many notes in 1712; incorporated by J. Migne in his Patrologia Latina, tomi clviii.-clix. (Paris. 1853-1854). Migne's reprint contains many errors. * The Cur Deus homo in the editions published by D. Nutt (London, 1885) and by Griffith Farran Browne (1891). * The Mariale, or poems in honour of the Blessed Virgin, has been carefully edited by Philibert Ragey (Tournai, 1885) * The Monologion and Proslogion, edited by C. E. Ubaghs (Louvain, 1854; Eng. trans. by S. N. Deane, Chicago, 1903) * The Meditationes, many of which are wrongly attributed to Anselm, have been frequently reprinted, and were included in Methuen's Library of Devotion (London, 1903). * Among the important historical criticisms of Anselm's philosophical works are those by J. M. Rigg, St. Anselm of Canterbury: A Chapter in the History of Religion (London, 1896), and Saint Anselme by Edmond Charles Eugène Domet de Vorges, (Grands Philosophes series, Paris, 1901). *Bibliography in A. Vacant's Dictionnaire de théologie.

Current references:

The main primary sources for the history of St. Anselm and his times are Eadmer's Vita Anselmi and his Historia Novorum.

* There is a recent Critical Edition of Anselms's works by F. S. Schmitt (1961) * The Proslogion has been translated by M. J. Charlesworth with an introduction and commentary (OUP, 1965, reprinted by University of Notre Dame Press, 1979) * * * Jori, Alberto, Die Paradoxien des menschlichen Selbstbewusstseins und die notwendige Existenz Gottes - Zu 'Cogitatio' und 'Intellectus' im Streit zwischen Anselm und Gaunilo, in: C. Viola and J. Kormos (ed.), Rationality from Saint Augustine to Saint Anselm. Proceedings of the International Anselm Conference - Piliscsaba (Hungary) 20-23 June 2002 (Piliscsaba 2005), pp. 197-210. *Attwater, Donald and Catherine Rachel John. The Penguin Dictionary of Saints. 3rd edition. New York: Penguin Books, 1993. ISBN 0-140-51312-4.

*Early British Kingdoms: St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury *Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Saint Anselm * *Professor Jasper Hopkins: Anselm of Canterbury containing English translations of nearly every major work by St. Anselm *Latin Library: Anselm of Canterbury *Saint Anselm at The Online Library of Liberty

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