^{page 40 note 1} The most extensive work in the chronology of Anselm's writings has been done by Schmitt, F. S., ‘Zur Chronologie der Werke des hl. Anselm von Canterbury’, Revue Bénédictine, XLIV (1932), pp. 322–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Schmitt dates Anselm's major writings as follows: 1076, Monologion; 1077–8, Proslogion; 1079, Reply to Gaunilo; 1080–5, De Grammatico and De Veritate; 1085–90?, De Libertate Arbitrii and De Casu Diaboli; 1094, Epistola de Incarnatione Verbi; 1094–8, Cur Deus Homo; 1099–1100, De Conceptu Virginali et Originali Peccato; 1102, De Processione Spiritus Sancti; 1107–8, De Concordia Praescientiae et Praedestinationis et Gratiae Dei cum Libero Arbitrio.

^{page 41 note 1} Koyré, A., L'Idée de Dieu dans la philosophic de saint Anselme (Ernest Leroux, Paris, 1923), p. 3.Google Scholar

^{page 41 note 2} Das Problem der Willenfreiheit in der Scholastik (Carl Winter's Universitätsbuchhandlung, Heidelberg, 1909), p. 50Google Scholar. Verweyen makes this remark in connexion with Anselm's doctrine of freedom, but the sentiment is often expressed in relation to Anselm's thought as a whole. For example, Redmond, Howard A. states, ‘Probably no more faithful discipline of Augustine ever lived than Anselm of Canterbury’ (The Omnipotence of God [Westminster Press, Philadelphia, 1964])Google Scholar; cf. also Rémusat, Charles de, Anselme de Cantorbéry, 2nd ed. (Libraire Académique, Paris, 1868), p. 393Google Scholar; Nourrisson, J. F., La Philosophic de saint Augustin, 2nd ed. (Paris 1866), vol. II, p. 167Google Scholar; Fischer, J., Die Erkenntnislehre Anselms von Canterbury (Aschendorff, Münister, 1911), p. 46.Google Scholar

^{page 41 note 3} cf. Pouchet, Robert, La Rectitudo chez saint Anselme (Études Augustiniennes, Paris, 1964), p. 56Google Scholar; Koyré, op. cit., pp. 3–5; Bouchitté, H., Le Rationalisme chrétien è la fun du XI stècle (Libraire d'Amyot, Paris, 1842), p. xxi.Google Scholar

^{page 41 note 4} cf. Charlesworth, M. J., St. Anselm's Proslogion (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1965), P. 23.Google Scholar

^{page 41 note 5} On Anselm's work as speculative, contemplative, or mystical, see Joseph Fischer, op. cit., pp. 3, 46; Bayart, J., ‘The Concept of Mystery according to Saint Anselm of Canterbury’, Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale, IX (1937), p. 144Google Scholar; Filliatre, Charles, La Philosophic de saint Anselme (Félix Alcan, Paris, 1920), pp. 39, 55, 78–79, 125–6Google Scholar; Pouchet, op. cit., p. 75; Leclercq, Jean, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God (New American Library Mentor Omega Books, New York, 1962), pp. 197, 215Google Scholar. As Neoplatonic, see Koyré, op. cit., pp. 60–68; Charlesworth, op. cit., p. 26f; Filliatre, op. cit., pp. 78, 128, 135, 220f, 240,442. On God and the soul as the two poles of thought, Pouchet, op. cit., p. 13; Filliatre, op. cit., pp. 49–50. On the hierarchical structure of being, Charlesworth, op. cit., p. 26; Filliatre, op. cit., pp. 210, 220. On the soul's journey to God, Filliatre, op. cit., pp. 279–80.

^{page 42 note 1} Monologion, LXVI.

^{page 42 note 2} ibid.: ‘What is more obvious, then, than that the more earnestly the rational mind devotes itself to learning its own nature, the more effectively it rises to the knowledge of the supreme being; and the more it neglects to consider itself, the farther it falls from the knowledge of that Being.’ S.I, p. 77, II, pp. 21–24. S.I and S. II will be used to refer respectively to the first and the second volume of Schmitt's, F. S. critical edition of Anselm's writings, Sancti Anselmi Opera Omnia (Nelson, Edinburgh, 1946–1961)Google Scholar. The complete edition includes six volumes.

^{page 42 note 3} ibid., LXX, LXXV; cf. Proslogion, XXV.

^{page 42 note 4} ibid., LXVII-LX.

^{page 42 note 5} Proslogion, I.

^{page 43 note 1} Augustine, , De Libero Arbitrio, II, iii, 7–xv, 39.Google Scholar

^{page 43 note 2} De Veritate, passim. (Hereafter cited as DV.)

^{page 44 note 1} De Libertate Arbitrii, passim. (Hereafter cited as DLA).

^{page 44 note 2} There are passages in Anselm's later writings which can be read to sound as though his perspective has not really departed in any significant degree from Augustine's emphasis on the soul as the central source of knowledge. The one which is most frequently cited is the passage in which Anselm complains regarding the ‘dialectici haeretici’ that in their souls reason is ‘so covered over by corporeal images that it cannot extricate itself from them …’ Epistola de Incarnatione Verbi, I, S. II, p. io, 11. 1–3. This passage, however, as the context shows, should not be taken to indicate that the material world as such is a grossly inferior source of knowledge which of its very nature will lead the soul away from God if it is taken as an important source of illumination (as it is for Augustine), but only that there is a right way and a wrong way of looking at the world, i.e. that there is a true and a false view of the world.

^{page 44 note 3} Proslogion, I, XXV, XXVI.

^{page 45 note 1} These qualities are manifest particularly clearly in the prayers entreating God's enabling help that are interspersed throughout the Proslogion.

^{page 45 note 2} The prayer with which the Proslogion closes captures this aim and spirit: ‘I pray, O God, that I may know you and love you, so that I may rejoice in you. And if I cannot do so fully in this life may I progress gradually until it comes to fullness. … Until then let my mind meditate on it, let my tongue speak of it, let my heart love it, let my mouth preach it. Let my soul hunger for it, let my flesh thirst for it, my whole being desire it, until I enter into the “joy of the Lord” …’ (Proslogion, XXXVI, S.I, p. 121, 1. 14-p. 122,1. I; translation by M. J. Charlesworth, op. cit., PP. 153–5).

^{page 45 note 3} DLA, VIII, S. I, p. 220, 11. 21–22 (my italics).

^{page 45 note 4} De Concordia Praescientiae et Praedeslinationis et Gratiae Dei cum Libero Arbitrio, III, vi. (Hereafter cited as DCd.)

^{page 45 note 5} De Casu Diaboli, IX and XVI. (Hereafter cited as DCs.)

^{page 45 note 6} DCd, III, iii and xiii.

^{page 45 note 7} DCd, III, iii.

^{page 46 note 1} To be sure, Anselm still speaks of happiness or beatitude as belonging to the purpose of God for man, but happiness is subordinated to rectitude, and is achieved only as a result of rectitude; cf. DCd, III, xii. He also continues to speak of man's ultimate end in terms of knowing and loving God; cf. ibid., and Commendatio Opens ad Urbanum Papam II, S. II, pp. 39–41. But these are given an entirely different colouring within the new perspective determined by the principle of rectitude. Man will know and love God perfectly because he ought to know and love God; indeed, these are his highest obligations. (Failure to fulfil these obligations is the way Anselm defines sin in Cur Deus Homo, I, xi.) When he is finally perfected in righteousness he will do fully everything that he ought to do. There is a sense, then, in which knowing and loving God is for Anselm the ultimate purpose of man in both his earlier and his later periods. And in both periods this purpose is correlated with the created nature of man. The critical difference, however, is that in the first period the purpose is essentially linked to an eros within man, whereas in the later period it is linked essentially with a moral telos or obligation imposed on him from without.

^{page 47 note 1} A very clear example of this is found in Ernst Lohmeyer's monograph on Anselm's doctrine of free will, Die Lehre vom Willen bei Anselm von Canterbury (Reinhold Berger, Lucka, 1914)Google Scholar. Lohmeyer interprets Anselm's doctrine of freedom as fitting right in with a speculative, neoplatonising metaphysical system inherited from Augustine and characterised by the psychological orientation and the systematic concern with God and the soul mentioned above.

^{page 47 note 2} cf. Lohmeyer, op. cit.

^{page 48 note 1} A minor qualification needs to be made here, for the account just given of Augustine's method is not fully applicable to his work in the early part of his Christian career, when he was still writing his philosophical dialogues and for a short time later. The method just described was implicit in Augustine's outlook from the time of his conversion onward, but it took a number of years and growing theological controversy for Augustine to see and develop its full implications and to apply it accordingly. In any event it certainly applies to the major portion of his work, the portion which exerted great influence on succeeding generations of medieval thinkers. The psychological orientation of his thought, however, appears to have been constant throughout his career, since it is plainly in evidence from his earliest writings on.

^{page 49 note 1} cf. DV, Preface.

^{page 50 note 1} cf. what is said, above.

^{page 50 note 2} The only scholars I know of who have noted this feature of Anselm's work are Hopkins, Jasper and Richardson, Herbert in their introduction to Anselm of Canterbury, Truth, Freedom, and Evil: Three Philosophical Dialogues (Harper Torchbooks, New York, 1967), p. 10Google Scholar; Southern, R. W., Saint Anslem and His Biographer (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1963), p. 352Google Scholar; and Henry, D. P., The Logic of Saint Anselm (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1967)Google Scholar, passim. Henry's work deals extensively with Anselm's views on language, but when he deals with Anselm's views toward ordinary language, he concentrates almost exclusively on his criticisms of it. He thus glosses over the positive uses that Anselm makes of ordinary language.

^{page 50 note 3} DV, I, S. I, p. 170,1. 21–p.177,1. 2.

^{page 50 note 4} cf., e.g., DV, II, S. I, p. 177, 11. 6–7 and p. 179, 1. 6; III, p. 180. 1. 7; V, p. 182.1. 18; IX, p. 188,11. 28–29. Anselm frequently refers to ordinary language in such terms as the following: ‘frequens usus’ in DLA, V, S. I, p. 215, 1. 21; De Potestate et Impotentia, Possibilitate et Impossibilitate, Necessitate et Libertate (found in F. S. Schmitt, Ein neues unvollendetes Werk des hl. Anselm von Canterbury, Band XXXIII, Heft 3 of Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophic des Mittelalters [Aschendorff, München, 1936], hereafter cited as DPI), p. 44; Liber de Voluntate (found in Patrologia Latina, vol. 158), col. 488c; ‘frequenti usu’ in DLA, VI, p. 218, 1. 4; ‘usitate est’ in Cur Deus Homo (hereafter cited as CDH), II, xvii, S. II. p. 123,1. 15; ‘usus loquendi’ (or the same term with different grammatical endings), DCs, XII, S. I, p. 253, 1. 18; DPI, p. 26, 11. 6–7; ‘in communi locutione’, DCs, XII, S.I, p. 253, I. 19; ‘usus communis locutions’, DV, S. I, p. 182, I. 13; ‘usus omnium loquentium’, De Grammatico, XI, S. I, p. 156, II. 13–14; ‘sicut usus habet’, CDH, II, xviii, S. II, p. 129, I. 21; ‘secudum usum’, DPI, p. 45, I. 5. This is only a sample.

^{page 51 note 1} cf. DV, chs. VI and VIII.

^{page 51 note 2} And the whole of DCd is an extension of this investigation.

^{page 52 note 2} cf. Filliatre, op. cit., p. 380; and Baeumker, Franz, Die Lehre Anselm von Canterbury über den Wilkn und seine Wahlfreiheit (Aschendorff, Munchen, 1912), p. 26f.Google Scholar

^{page 53 note 1} DCd, passim.

^{page 54 note 1} DV, Preface.

^{page 54 note 2} DV, I.

^{page 55 note 1} DCd, III, I.

^{page 55 note 2} DCs, I.

^{page 55 note 3} Anselm's first biographer, Eadmer, tells us that he ‘applied his whole mind to this end, that according to his faith he might be found worthy to see with the eyes of reason those things in the Holy Scripture which, as he felt, lay hidden in deep obscurity’ (Eadmer, , Vita Sancti Anselmi, edited with introduction, notes and translation by Southern, R. W. [Nelson, London, 1962], I, vii, p. 12.)Google Scholar

^{page 55 note 4} ‘There has been considerable debate among Anselm scholars as to whether Anselm's ultimate aim was proof or understanding of the doctrines of the faith. Some who support the view that Anselm's aim was understanding are Barth, , Anselm: Fides Quaerens Intellectum (S.C.M. Press, London, 1960), p. 14Google Scholar; Koyré, op. cit., pp. 28, 36; Hayen, A., ‘La Méthode théologique selon saint Anselme’, Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge, vols. X - XI (1935–1936), pp. 96–102Google Scholar. For an advocate of the theory that Anselm's aim is proof, see Gilson, É., Reason and Revelation in the Middle Ages (Scribner's, New York, 1938), pp. 22–27Google Scholar. The issues in this debate have not been most clearly drawn; for example, it has not been made precisely clear how understanding differs from proof. On this matter, however, it can be said that Anselm is working within an Aristotelian conception of the nature of knowledge, and in this perspective understanding and proof are very closely linked. Understanding is the rational apprehension of the essential nature of things, and proof is the demonstration of the necessity of what follows therefrom. Understanding and proof, then, are two poles in a continuous movement of thought. Consequently, there may be very little at stake in this debate concerning the ultimate aim of Anselm's investigations.

^{page 56 note 1} De Processions Spiritus Sancti, XI, S. II, p. 209, 11. 12–16.

^{page 56 note 2} cf. Epistola de Incarnatione Verbi, I. S. II, pp. 3–4. (Hereafter cited as DIV.)

^{page 56 note 3} It should be noted that when Anselm speaks of knowledge, he is not concerned with the sort of knowledge about the world that is provided to us today through the natural sciences. The only kind of knowledge that he is interested in, and so the only kind that he refers to in his use of the term ‘knowledge’, is that which is relevant to the spiritual needs of man. Anselm may have been willing to acknowledge the existence of other forms of knowledge, and if so he might well have agreed that reason has on its own the competence to discover and develop it. But that's largely a matter of speculation. The fact is that Anselm never concerns himself with the question of whether there are other forms of knowledge; he directs himself solely to that which he considers of paramount importance.

^{page 57 note 1} cf. DIV, I, S. II, p. 7,1. 10–p. 8,1. 6: ‘…as long as men try to attain through prior understanding to those things which first require the ladder of faith, they invert the order prescribed in the text, “Unless you believe, you will not understand,” and are forced to descend into all sorts of errors because their understanding is defective. … It is just as if bats and owls, who see the sky only at night, were to carry on an argument with eagles about the midday rays of the sun, while gazing at it with their blind eyes.’ Translation by George Peck in Hopkins, J. and Richardson, H. (eds.), Anselm of Canterbury, Theological Treatises (Harvard Divinity School Library, Cambridge, Mass., 1966), vol. II, pp. 72–73.Google Scholar

^{page 58 note 1} cf. CDH, I, xviii, S. II, p. 82; DIV, I, S. II, p. 5, 11. 4–21. At one point, Boso, Anselm's interlocutor in CDH, asserts, ‘I did not come to you to have any doubt of mine concerning the faith taken away, but to be shown the reason for my certainty’ (CDH, I, xxv). In his letter to Pope Urban II introducing the CDH Anselm writes that one should seek the rationem of the faith after he is certain of it; S. II, p. 39, 1.5.

^{page 58 note 2} cf. DCs, IV, S. I, p. 240, 1. 18; X, p. 247, 11. 14–16.

^{page 58 note 3} cf. CDH, I, xviii, S. II, p. 82, II. 8–10; Monologion, I, S. I, p. 14,11. Iff; CDH, I, ii, S. II, p. 50, 11. 10–13; II, xxii, p. 133, 11. 12–15; DCd, III, vi, S. II, p. 272, II. 4–7.

^{page 60 note 1} DIV, I, S. I, p. 7,1. 2.

^{page 61 note 1} CDH, I, s, I. II, pp. 47–48.

^{page 61 note 2} The complaint that Anselm does not use Scripture sufficiently goes all the way back to Lanfranc; cf. Gilson, É., History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages (Sheed and Ward, London, 1955), p. 615.Google Scholar

^{page 61 note 3} In discussing the means for combatting the error of Roscelin, Anselm writes, ‘We should not reply to this man by the authority of Scripture, because he either does not believe Scripture, or he interprets it in a perverse sense. … His error therefore must be demonstrated by the same reason by which he endeavours to defend himself’ (DIV, II, S. II, p. 11, 11. 5–8).

^{page 61 note 4} The most thorough analysis of Anselm's logical writings and the soundest estimate of their significance is found in the writings of Henry, D. P., particularly in his The ‘De Grammatico’ of Saint Anselm (Univ. of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, 1964Google Scholar) and The Logic of Saint Anselm (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1967).Google Scholar

^{page 62 note 1} The leading exponents of these alternative interpretations are É. Gilson, who in op. cit. champions the rationalistic interpretation, and Karl Barth, who in op. cit. defends the intra–fideistic interpretation.

^{page 62 note 2} I am greatly indebted to Professor Herbert Richardson and to many conversations with him concerning Anselm for the crystallisation and clarification of many of the points in this article.