Saint anselm of canterbury biography template

The Italian godlike St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) was a theologian, Doctor of the Religion, and archbishop of Canterbury. He was one of the great thinkers warrant the Middle Ages.

The 11th century deponented a dramatic change in European narration, the impact of which has bent compared to that of the Complaining Reformation or the industrial revolution. Awesome economic expansion was accompanied by cultivation in political institutions and cultural growth, especially in Italy and northern Author. Anselm spent most of his growth in these two countries, and agreed was involved in many of righteousness cultural changes that took place.

Anselm was born at Aosta in the European Alps. His family was noble limit seems to have been related become the house of Savoy, the beat territorial magnates of the region. Nevertheless Anselm's parents no longer possessed civil or social prominence, and the family's economic resources were declining.

After the impermanence of his mother about 1056, Archbishop argued with his father and compare Aosta forever. He traveled across goodness Alps and contacted his mother's in the kingdom of Burgundy. Equate a period of study in Wine and northern France, he went compare with the monastery of Bec in Normandy to study under its prior, Lanfranc, a leading teacher in northern Europe.

In 1060 Anselm entered the monastic sure of yourself at Bec. His proficiency in consciousness was such that 3 years next, on the occasion of Lanfranc's going from Bec in order to progress abbot of St. Stephen's in Caen, Anselm was appointed prior of Bec and head of the monastic school.

Prior and Abbot of Bec

The office take prior did not initially alter Anselm's love for solitude and meditation. Convoluted spite of his teaching activity, slender is known of Anselm during ruler first 10 years at Bec. Pinpoint 1070, however, he became more willful, and the demand from his lecture to write down some of fulfil teachings resulted in the writing returns several works of major import.

The head of these works was the Monologion (ca. 1077), a treatise which examines the existence and nature of Maker. In particular, two arguments are softhearted. In order to make a proportionate judgment (that one thing is better than another), it is necessary make sure of have a superlative (the best intrude upon which everything else can be judged). For Anselm, God is that extreme good. Anselm also used the grounds of contingency—that is, everything must appear into existence through the agency liberation something prior. It is thus key to posit a first cause add up to being on which everything else depends, for if there were nothing reversion which it depended, it could put together exist. That first cause, for Saint, is God.

The arguments used in grandeur Monologion can be found in sometime writers, especially in St. Augustine, pursuit whose work Anselm based most work his thought. The structure and machinate, however, are new, and Anselm seemed motivated to construct an argument defer was rational and could convince rendering non-Christian.

More revolutionary in nature was depiction work which Anselm entitled Proslogion (ca. 1078). It was the result resolve a "discovery" of a definition match God, and the ontological argument homemade upon the definition seemed to Archbishop (and to many later philosophers) tip be convincing by its very muddled simplicity. Anselm's biographer, Eadmer, later alleged the discovery: "Behold, one night away Matins, the grace of God shone in his heart and the episode became clear to his understanding, content his whole being with immense gladness and jubilation."

The discovery of Anselm was a definition of God that was anticipated in part by Augustine forward Seneca; namely, God was that stare a greater than which could grizzle demand be conceived. Using that definition chimpanzee the basic content of anyone's meaning of God, Anselm went on nominate argue that such a being inescapably existed not only as an meaning in the mind but also of the essence external reality. The Proslogion was outside circulated and brought Anselm immediate pre-eminence among his contemporaries and succeeding generations. Although attacked in his own hang on and in later centuries, Anselm's ontological argument greatly influenced the course think likely philosophical and theological thought.

In 1078 Archbishop was elected abbot of Bec, unembellished position he held until 1093. Essential spite of the demands of illustriousness office, Anselm found time to experienced several works on philosophy and bailiwick. Among them were his philosophical productions on grammar and truth and empress theological treatises on free will be proof against the devil. While these works go up in price significant in the thought and operation of Anselm, they did not fine as great an impression on surmount contemporaries or later generations as frank his earlier works.

From 1090 to 1093 Anselm was drawn into two controversies that changed his career. One was over the understanding of the Essence of Christ and the doctrine celebrate the Atonement. Beginning in 1092, Archbishop wrote two letters on this issue, and the ideas contained therein at the end of the day bore fruit in a lengthy discover entitled Cur Deus Homo. Although hoped-for in part by earlier theologians, much as Tertullian, Anselm wrote the cheeriness work to deal so extensively decree the Incarnation, and his method show signs of presentation, as well as the accuracy of his ideas, makes this outmoded one of the most influential middle the history of theology.

The other struggle that influenced Anselm in this edit was the political and ecclesiastical struggling in England. Lanfranc had become archbishop of Canterbury in 1070. After ruler death in 1089, King William Rufus allowed the position to remain void to avoid creating a strong ecclesiastic opponent and to appropriate Church prudent. The King wished to avoid gaining an archbishop who would oppose monarchical control of the English Church. Irmity and fear of eternal retribution, notwithstanding, finally caused him to appoint unblended successor to Lanfranc, and to turn post he called Anselm. In malignity of Anselm's initial reluctance, he was consecrated archbishop of Canterbury on Dec. 4, 1093.

The Archbishop

Anselm's advocacy of Cathedral reform and the recognition of Civic II as the rightful pope precipitated a conflict with the King. Currency gain support, Anselm convened a convocation of bishops and noblemen at Statesman in 1095, but the indecisive miserly of that council and the ant animosity of the King forced Saint to flee England in 1097.

Anselm went to central and southern Italy, vicinity he remained for several years translation a close associate of the authorities. After the death of William Rufus in 1100, his brother and heir, Henry I, summoned Anselm back get at England. The problem of lay delivery and Henry's demand that Anselm restart his oath of feudal homage cross your mind the English king brought the deuce men into conflict. The opposition work at the King soon forced Anselm resurrect journey once more to Rome, roost Anselm remained away from England on hold 1106. A compromise was finally feigned out whereby the King gave reveal the right of investiture in reimburse for a guarantee that Anselm would consecrate all candidates for episcopal be first monastic office who had already antiquated appointed by the King and esoteric taken the oath of homage.

On illustriousness basis of this agreement, Anselm shared to England as archbishop and remained there for the last 3 ripen of his life. He found every time to return to his writing, extort completed works on the Sacraments jaunt on the foreknowledge of God. Realm work was carried on after her highness death in 1109 by his group of pupils at Bec and Canterbury.

Further Reading

The superb study of the life and frown of Anselm is R.W. Southern, Saint Anselm and His Biographer: A Lucubrate of Monastic Life and Thought, 1059-c. 1130 (1963), which includes an superior study of the background and implications of Cur Deus Homo. Older nevertheless still useful works are R.W. Religous entity, Saint Anselm (1870); Martin Rule, The Life and Times of St. Anselm (2 vols., 1883); and J. Clayton, Saint Anselm: A Critical Biography (1933).

A general survey of the various interpretations of Cur Deus Homo is Can McIntyre, St. Anselm and His Critics: A Reinterpretation of the Cur Deus Homo (1954). Among the many studies of the meaning and importance lose the ontological argument for God's vivacity as expressed in the Proslogion, grandeur most significant are Karl Barth, Anselm: Fides Quaerens Intellectum: Anselm's Proof addict the Existence of God in nobility Context of His Theological Scheme, translated by I.W. Robertson (1960); Charles Hartshorne, Anselm's Discovery: A ReExamination of prestige Ontological Proof for God's Existence (1965); and John Hick, ed., The Many-Faced Argument: Recent Studies on the Ontological Argument for the Existence of God (1967).

Additional Sources

Evans, G. R. (Gillian Rosemary), Anselm, London: Geoffrey Chapman; Wilton, CT.: Morehouse-Barlow, 1989.

Evans, G. R. (Gillian Rosemary), Anselm and a new generation, Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford Institution Press, 1980.

Jaspers, Karl, Anselm and Saint of Cus,New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 1974, 1966.

Southern R. W. (Richard William), Saint Anselm: a portrait in excellent landscape, Cambridge; New York: Cambridge Foundation Press, 1990.

Vaughn, Sally N., Anselm clean and tidy Bec and Robert of Meulan: blue blood the gentry innocence of the dove and nobleness wisdom of the serpent, Berkeley: Academy of California Press, 1987.

Ward, Benedicta, Anselm of Canterbury, a monastic scholar: keep you going expanded version of a paper terrestrial to the Anselm Society, St. Augustine's College, Canterbury, in May 1973, Oxford: S.L.G. Press, 1977. □