Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-wxhwt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-12T21:29:30.726Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

St Anselm and Those Outside the Church

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2016

Anna S. Abulafia
Anna S. Abulafia*
Affiliation:
Clare Hall, Cambridge
Get access

Extract

We know from Eadmer’s Vita Anselmi that Anselm would eat little when he sat down to meals with his monks. Instead of having one of his monks read from an appropriate book at mealtimes, Anselm would instruct the community himself. Indeed, Anselm talked so much that, according to his biographer, it would take a separate book to record all that he said. In fact, Anselm’s sayings were collected, and it is to one of these that I wish to pay particular attention.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History Subsidia , Volume 6: Faith and Identity: Christian Political Experience , 1990 , pp. 11 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1990 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Eadmer, , Vita Anselmi, ed. Southern, R.W., NMT (1962)Google Scholar; repr. OMT (1972) [hereafter VA], ii, 11, p. 78: Southern, R. W., Saint Anselm and his Biographer. A Study of Monastic Life and Thought, 1059-C.1130 (Cambridge, 1963) [hereafter AB], p. 219.Google Scholar

2 De humanis moribus per similitudines, ed. Southern, R. W. and Schmitt, F. S., Memorials of St Anselm, ABMA, I (1969), 75–6, pp. 66–7.Google Scholar

3 Ep. 101, Anselmi, S.… opera omnia, ed. Schmitt, F. S., 6 vols (Edinburgh, 1946-61) [hereafter S], 3, pp. 233–4.Google Scholar

4 Ep. 195, S, 4, p. 85.

5 I am relying on Schmitt’s notes in daring Anselm’s letters and in identifying the people in them.

6 Ep. 17; S, 3, pp. 122-4.

7 Ep. 117; S, 3, p. 251.

8 S, 3, p. 252.

9 Epp. 380, 381; 5, 5, pp. 323-4. Letter 380 contains the words:’… quatenus ille cum familiola sua nullam duram patiatur indigentiam, sed gaudeat se de perfidia transisse ad veram fidem, et probet ex ipsa nostra pietate quia fides nostra propinquior est Deo quam Iudaica’. Dahan, G., ‘Saint Anselme, les Juifs, le judaïsme’ in Les Mutations socio-culturelles au tournant des Xle-XIIe siècles (Paris, 1984), p. 521Google Scholar deduces from the fact that Anselm says here that the Christian Faith is closer to God than the Jewish faith that Anselm concedes that Judaism is a faith and has some proximity to God. I think, however, that because these words are part of a sentence in which Judaism is contrasted to Christianity as being a perfidia rather than the vera fides that Anselm’s use of the comparative propinquior does not necessarily imply that he is conceding any closeness to God to contemporary Judaism.

10 Blumenkranz, B., ‘Perfidia’, Juifs et Chrétiens patristique et moyen âge, 7, Variorum Reprints (London, 1977).Google Scholar

11 Dahan, p. 521.

12 Ibid.

13 Eadmer, , Historia novorum in Anglia, ed. Rule, M., RS, 81 (London, 1881), 2, pp. 99—100.Google Scholar

14 Also Anselm’s pupil Gilbert Crispin knew a Jew and wrote a disputation reflecting the conversations he had with him. See Southern, R. W., ‘St Anselm and Gilbert Crispin, abbot of Westminster’, MRSt, 3 (1954), pp. 78–99Google Scholar; Abulafia, A. S., ‘The Ars disputandi of Gilbert Crispin, abbot of Westminster (1085-1117)’ in Cappon, C. M. et al., ed., Ad Fontes Opstellen aangeboden aan prof. dr. C. Van de Kieft (Amsterdam, 1984), pp. 139–52.Google Scholar

15 Cur Deus Homo [hereafter CDH], i, 9; S, 2, p. 61.

16 CDH, i, 18; S, 2, p.78.

17 EpSac, 3; S, 2, p. 226.

18 EpSac, 2; S, 2, p. 225.

19 EpSac, 4; S, 2, p. 227.

20 See below, p. 20.

21 S, 2, p. 115.

22 Funkenstein, A., ‘Basic types of Christian anti-Jewish polemics’, Viator, 2 (1971), p. 378; Dalian, p. 522.Google Scholar

23 Med., 3;S, 3, p.89: trans. Ward, B., The Prayers and Meditations of St Anselm (Harmondsworth, 1973). P. 235.Google Scholar

24 Orado, 4; 5 3, pp. 11-12.

25 Dahan, ‘Saint Anselme’, p. 522, says the killers must refer to the Jews of CDH, i, 9, but Anselm is referring to the murderers of I Cor. 2.8, whose identity is not specified.

26 De altaris Sacramento, sections 15-16, ed. Evans, G. R. in The Works of Gilbert Crispin, ed. Abulafia, A. S. and Evans, G. R., ABMA, 8 (London, 1986), pp. 126–7.Google Scholar

27 De inc. verbi(i), 5:S, i, p. 285; Ibid.(2),2; S, 2, p. 10.

28 CDH, ii, 22; S, 2, p. 133.

29 It is not clear whether sola ralione in CDH, ii, 22 applies only to pagani or whether it refers to the Jews too. Roques, R. favours the latter view (Pourqoui Dieu s’est fait homme, Sources Chrétiennes, 91 [Paris, 1963], p. 461)Google Scholar, Schmitt’s translation is a bit ambiguous (Darmstadt, 1970, p. 155), but in his article ‘Die wissenschaftliche Methode in Anselms, ‘Cur Deus Homo’, Spicilegium Beccense, 1 (Le Bec Hellouin and Paris, 1959), p. 355Google Scholar he implies it applies only to pagans.

30 VA, ii, 33, pp. 110-12.

31 Roques, , Pourquoi Dieu, pp. 72–4 and ‘Les Pagani dans le Cur Deus Homo de Saint Anselm’ Miscellanea Mediaevalia, 2 (1963), pp. 192–206.Google Scholar

32 Gauss, J., ‘Die Auseinandersetzung mit Judentum und Islam bei Anselm’, Analecta Anselmiana 4, 2 (1975), pp. 101–9Google Scholar and ‘Anselmus von Canterbury zur Begegnung und Auseinandersetzung der Religionen’, Saeculum, 17 (1966), passim.

33 Charlesworth, M. J., St Anselm’s ‘Proslogion’ with a reply on behalf of the Fool by Gaunilo and the Author’s to Gaunilo (Oxford, 1965), pp. 32–311.Google Scholar

34 S, 2, p. 119, contra Gauss, ‘Anselmus’, p. 349 and Roques, Pourquoi Dieu, p.460, n. I.

35 EpSac.,4;;S, 2, p. 227.

36 VA, i, 30, pp. 51-2.

37 ASC anno 1012;Thietmar of Merseburg, Chronicon, ed. Holtzmann, R., trans. Trillmich, W., Ausgetwählte Quellen, 9 (Berlin, 1958), vii, 42, p. 398.Google Scholar

38 VA, i, 30, p. 52 and 52 n. I, and Osbern, Vita S. Elphegi Archiepiscopi Cantuariewis, ed. Wharton, H., Anglia Sacra, 2 (London, 1691), pp. 132ff.Google Scholar

39 Gesta Normannorum ducum, ed. Marx, J. (Rouen and Paris, 1914), v, 11, p. 86Google Scholar. I am grateful to Dr E. M. C van Houts of Girton College, Cambridge, who is preparing a new edition of the Gesta for Oxford Medieval Texts, for this information and for sharing her thoughts with me on Normandy in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

40 See Orderic Vitalis, Hist, ecc., ed. Chibnall, M.. 6 vols, OMT (1969-80)Google Scholar, bk v, vol. 3, p. 94 for Muslims, and ibid., p. 304 for Danes.

41 Vita Herluini, sections 3 and 15, ed. Evans, G. R., The Works of Gilbert Crispin, pp. 185, 187–8Google Scholar.

42 London, 1075, canon 8: Whitelock, D., Brett, M., and Brooke, C.N.L., eds, Councils and Synods with Other Documents relating to the English Church, 2 (Oxford, 1981), p. 614Google Scholar; Gibson, M., Lanfranc of Bee (Oxford, 1978), p. 145.Google Scholar

43 Ep. 263; S, 4, p. 178. See also below the reference to infideles in letter 235. On Diego, see Fletcher, R. A., Saint James’s Catapult. The Life and Times of Diego Gelmirez of Santiago de Compostela (Oxford, 1984).Google Scholar

44 For this section and the next 1 have used A Concordance to the Works of St Anselm, ed. Evans, G. R. (New York, 1984).Google Scholar

45 De proc, 14; S, 2, p. 215.

46 De gram., 1;S, 1, p. 146.

47 CDH, ii, n;S, 2, p. 109.

48 Ibid., i, 1918, 2, p. 86.

49 S, 4, p. 185.

50 Ep. 427; S, 5, p. 373.

51 EP. 335; S, 5, p. 295.

52 S, 2, p. 78.

53 Disputatio Christiani cum Gentili, ed. Abulafia, A. S., The Works of Gilbert Crispin, pp. 61–87Google Scholar; Abulafia, A. S., ‘An attempt by Gilbert Crispin, abbot of Westminster, at rational argument in theJewish-Christian debate’, Studia Monastica, 26 (1984), pp. 54–74.Google Scholar

54 Ep. 77; S, 3, p. 200.

55 De casu diaboli, 27; S, i, p. 275.

56 Ora., 4; S, 3, pp. 11-12.

57 S, 5, p. 328.

58 Ep. 297; S, 4, p. 217.

59 Pros., 2-3; S, 1, pp. 101-333; Campbell, R., ‘Anselm’s theological method’, Scottish Journal of Theology, 32 (1979), pp. 541–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 544-6. His book From Belief to Understanding: a Study of Anselm’s Proslogion on the Existence of God (Canberra, 1976), analyses the logic of the Proslogion. This view of the gist of the Proslogion does fit in well with Eadmer’s summary of what Anselm had set out to do: ‘… it entered into his mind to investigate whether it was possible to prove in one short argument what is believed and predicated about God’. (VA, i.19, p. 29), but see Southern’s note giving a somewhat different opinion on the matter.

60 Barth, K., Fides Quaerens intellectum, Anselms Beweis der Existenz Gottes im Zusammentrag seines theologischen Programms (1913, repr. Zurich, 1981)Google Scholar; Hayen, A. ‘S. Anselme et S. Thomas’, Spicilegium Beccense, 1, pp. 45–93Google Scholar; Charlesworth, , St Anselm’s ‘Proslogion’: Hopkins, J., A Companion to the Study of St Anselm (Minneapolis, 1972)Google Scholar.

61 Pros., 4: S,1, p. 103.

62 CDH, 1, 25; S,2, p. 95.

63 Contra Barth, pp. 15-16.

64 Responsio, 1; S, 1, p. 130: ‘Quoniam non me reprehendit in his dictis ille insipiens, contra quem sum locutus in meo opusculo, sed quidem non insipiens et catholicus pro insipiente: sufficere mihi potest respondere catholico’.

65 Responsio, 8: S, 1, p. 137.

66 De inc. verbi(1), 5; S, 1, p. 285.

67 De inc. verbi(2); 2, S, 2, pp. 10—11.

68 Historia novorum, 2, pp. 101-2.

69 I am very grateful to Dr Alexander Murray from University College, Oxford, for allowing me to consult an unpublished paper of his: ‘Was religious doubt regarded as a sin in the Middle Ages?’ which discusses the case of Othlo.

70 Liber de tentationibus suis et scriptis, 1; PL 146, col. 41.

71 Mclntyre, J., ‘Premises and conclusions in the system of St Anselm’s theology’, Spicilegium Beccense, 1, p. 97Google Scholar (he refers here to the moving text of the first chapter of the Proslogion); Campbell, ‘Anselm’s theological method’, p. 547. Many other scholars would deny this.

72 Schmeck, H., ‘Infidels.Ein Beitrag zur Wortgeschichte’, Vigiliae Christianae, 5 (1951), pp. 129–49Google Scholar, esp. 147; Blaise, A., Dictionnaire Latin-Français des auteurs chrétiens (Strasburg, 1954).Google Scholar

73 Ep. 235; S, 4, p. 142.

74 S, 4, pp. 52 and 133.

75 De casu diaboli, 21; S, 1, pp. 266-7.

76 On the letter see Roques, Pourquoi Dieu, p. 194n

77 S, 2, p. 39.

78 Roques [Pourquoi Dieu, pp. 194-5n) has pointed out the untechnical use of insipiencia here, but he interprets infideles as meaning Jews and Muslims.

79 S, 2, p. 42.

80 S, 2, pp. 47-8.

81 S, 2, p. 48.

82 VA, i. 34, pp. 60-1; Vila Bosonis, PL 150, col. 725.

83 Gesia Normannorum ducum, viii. 24, pp. 298-9.

84 S, 2, p. 50.

85 CDU, i,4,6, 8,25: ii, 8; S, 2, pp. 51, 53, 55,59,95,104.

86 S, 2, p. 116.

87 E.g., Schmitt, ‘Die wissenschaftliche Methode’, p. 354; Roques, Pourquoi Dieu, p. 72n.

88 CDH. 1, 3; 5,2, p. 50.

89 Dahan, pp. 523-4. It was van der Plaas, G. who argued that the Cur Deus Homo should be seen as an answer to Jewish objections to the Incarnation: ‘Des hl. Anselm Cur Deus Homo auf dem Boden der jüdisch-chrisdichen Polemik Mittelalters’, Divus Thomas, 7 (Fribourg, 1929), pp. 446–67, and ibid., 8 (1930), pp. 18–32.Google Scholar

90 Lasker, D. J. points out that among the kabbalists there were some who entertained some concept of original sin in that they believed that Adam’s sin gave evil an active existence in the world. But the kabbalists believed that every man could overcome the state of corruption by himself with the help of God: Jewish Philosophical Polemics against Christianity in the Middle Ages (New York, 1977), p. 226, n. 19Google Scholar. See also Scholem, G. G., Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, rev. edn (New York, 1946)Google Scholar, passim.

91 Disputano Iudei, section 15 3, ed. Abulafia, A. S., The Works of Gilbert Crispin, pp. 50–1Google Scholar. See also Southern’s, R. W. comments and different views in AB, pp. 88–91.Google Scholar

92 Besides CDH. ii, 22; S, 2, p. 133; De inc. verbi (1),5: S, 1, p. 285; Ibid(2),2;S, 2, p. 10; Epsac, 4; S, 2, p.227; see above.

93 See n. 69 above.

94 See AB, pp. 78-82 on the influence of the controversy with Roscelin on Anselm’s development.

95 Ep. 136; S, 3, pp.279-81.

96 S, 3, pp. 280-1.

97 De inc. verbi (2), 1; S,2,6-7.

98 Ep. 136; S, 3, p. 280: ‘“credo in unum Deum, patrem omnipotentum, creatorem”; et “Credo in unum Deum, patrem omnipotentem, factorem”; et quicumque vult salvus esse, ante omnia opus est ut teneat catholicam fidem’. Schmitt points out that the Apostolic, Nicean Constanrinopolitan, and Athanasian creeds are being used here.

99 De inc. verbi(2), 1; S, 2, p. 6.

100 De inc. verbi(2), 1; S,2, p. 9; on this passage see Henry, D.P., ‘Saint Anselm as a logician’, Sola Ralione. Anselm-Studien für… F. S. Schmitt (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, 1970) p. 16Google Scholar; Southern, R. W.. ‘St Anselm and his English pupils’, MRSt, 1 (1941), p. 20Google Scholar; Campbell, ‘Anselm’s theological method’, p. 553. See also De inc. verbi(1), 10; S, 1, p. 289; Ibid.(2)), 4; S, 2, pp. 17—18. Anselm does not employ the word haeretici anywhere else in his oeuvre. He uses the word fiaeresis once in both recensions of the De Incarnatione Verbi ([1], 7; S, I, p. 287; [2], 3; S, 2, p. 15) when he compares Roscelin’s ideas to the haeresis Sabellii, a trinitarian heresy.

101 See AB, p. 79.

102 CDH, i, 10; S, 2, p. 67.

103 AB, pp. 82-8 and 37-67; VA, i.34, pp. 60—1. See also Evans, G. R., Anselm and Talking about God (Oxford, 1978), pp. 165,178.Google Scholar

104 On believing and willing rightly see, e.g., De Concordia, III. 2,6: S, 2, pp. 265 and 270. See also, Herrera, R. A., ‘The Foolish of the De Utililate credendi: a parallel to Anselm’s insipiens?’, Analecla Anselmiana, 5 (1976), pp. 133–40Google Scholar for an original view on the benefit an insipiens could draw from Anselm’s argument.

105 Pros., 1; S, 1, p. 100.

106 Barth, pp. 15-16 and 59-72.

107 Gauss, ‘Anselmus’, p. 363 and passim.

108 Epp. 235 and 324; S,4, pp. 142-3; S, 5, p. 255. See also, Mason, J. F. A., ‘St Anselm’s relations with laymen’, Spkilegium Beccense, 1, pp. 556–9Google Scholar;]. A. Brundage, ‘St Anselm, Ivo of Chartres and the ideology of the First Crusade’, Les Mutations socio-culturelleas au tournant Jes XIe-XIIe siècles, p. 178.

109 VA, ii, 33, pp. 111-12.