ANSELM (1033?-1109), who has been called the greatest thinker that ever adorned the throne of Canterbury, was born at Aosta in Piedmont. At an early age he crossed the Alps, and finally settled in the famous abbey of Bec where in 1056 he was elected prior, and in 1078, abbot. Under his rule Bec became the first seat of learning in Europe, a result due not more to his intellectual powers than to the great moral influence of his noble character and kindly discipline. It was during these quiet years at Bec that Anselm wrote the dialogues on Truth and Freewill, and the two celebrated treatises, the Monologion and Proslogion.
Anselm several times visited England, where his convent had great estates, and had so won the love of the people that they expected him to succeed Lanfranc in the see of Canterbury. But when Lanfranc died (May 28 1089) William Rufus seized the possessions and revenues of the see, and made no new appoint ment. In 1093, William fell ill and thinking his death near at hand, in a fit of remorse forced Anselm to accept the vacant see. After his consecration, Anselm demanded of the king, as the conditions of his retaining office, that he should give up all the possessions of the see, accept his spiritual counsel, and acknowl edge Urban II. as pope in opposition to the anti-pope, Clement. The last involved him in a serious difficulty. It was a rule of the church that the consecration of metropolitans could not be com pleted without their receiving the pallium from the hands of the pope. Anselm, accordingly, insisted that he must proceed to Rome to receive the pall. But William would not acknowledge Urban, and maintained his right to prevent any pope being acknowledged by an English subject without his permission. A council of churchmen and nobles, held to settle the matter, advised Anselm to submit to the king, but Anselm remained firm. The matter was postponed, and William meanwhile privately sent messengers to Rome, who acknowledged Urban and pre vailed on him to send a legate to the king bearing the archi episcopal pall. A partial reconciliation was then effected, and the matter compromised. The pall was not given by the king, but was laid on the altar at Canterbury, whence Anselm took it.
Little more than a year after, fresh trouble arose with the king, and in October 1097 Anselm set out for Rome to consult the pope. William immediately seized on the revenues of the see, and retained them to his death. Anselm was received with high honour by Urban, and at a great council held at Bari, he was put forward to defend the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Ghost against the representatives of the Greek Church. But Urban would not embroil himself with the king of England, and Anselm withdrew from Rome to the village of Schiavi, where he finished his treatise on the atonement, Cur Deus Homo, and then retired to Lyons.
In 1100 William was killed, and Henry, his successor, at once recalled Anselm. But Henry demanded that he should again re ceive from him in person investiture in his office of archbishop. Now, the papal rule in the matter was plain ; all homage and lay investiture were strictly prohibited. The long dispute that fol lowed continued until 1107, when the king resigned his formal rights. The remaining two years of Anselm's life were spent in the duties of his archbishopric. He died on April 21 1109. He was canonized in -194 by Alexander VI.
Anselm's works, which contrast with the elaborate syntheses of some of his successors, exhibit that recognition of the rela tion of reason to revealed truth, and that attempt to elaborate a rational system of faith, which form the special characteristics of scholastic thought. But in Anselm, as in all Scholastics writing previous to the introduction of the works of Aristotle and the Arabians into the West, there is no sharp distinction between natural and revealed theology. For him, the starting-point of all theological speculation must be faith, Credo ut intelligam. "He who does not believe will not experience, and he who has not experienced will not understand." And once confirmed in faith it is our duty to demonstrate by reason the truth of that which we believe.
The groundwork of Anselm's theory of knowledge is contained in the tract De Veritate, in which, from the consideration of truth as in knowledge, in willing, and in things, he rises to the affirmation of an absolute truth, in which all other truth partici pates. This absolute truth is God Himself, who is therefore the ultimate ground or principle both of things and of thought. The notion of God comes thus into the foreground of the system. The demonstration of God's real existence is the substance of the Monologion and Proslogion. In the first of these, the proof rests on the ordinary grounds of realism, and the Platonic notion that the use of a common predicate to cover a number of in stances can only be justified if that predicate refers to an identi cal nature which is exhibited in all the instances. Things, Anselm says, are called good in a variety of ways and degrees ; this implies some absolute standard, some good in itself, in which all relative goods participate. Similarly with such predicates as great, just, they involve a certain greatness and justice. The very existence of things is impossible without some one Being, by whom they are. This absolute Being, this goodness, justice, great ness, is God.
In the Proslogion, as the author himself tells us, the aim is to prove God's existence by a single argument. This argument is the celebrated ontological proof. God is that Being than whom none greater can be conceived. Now, if that than which nothing greater can be conceived existed only in the intellect, it would not be the absolutely greatest, for we could add to it existence in reality. It follows, then, that the Being than whom nothing greater can be conceived, i.e., God, necessarily has real existence. This reasoning, in which Anselm partially anticipated the Car tesian philosophers, has rarely seemed satisfactory. It was opposed at the time by the monk Gaunilo, in his Liber pro Insipiente, on the ground that we cannot pass from idea to reality. The same criticism is made by Aquinas, and in sub stance by Kant. Anselm replied to the objections of Gaunilo in his Liber Apologeticus. Finally, in his greatest work, Cur Deus Homo, he undertakes to make plain, even to infidels, the rational necessity of the atonement. The theory rests on three positions: that satisfaction is necessary on account of God's honour and justice; that such satisfaction can be given only by the peculiar personality of the God-man ; that such satisfaction is really given by the voluntary death of this infinitely valuable person. The demonstration is, in brief, this: All the actions of men are due to the furtherance of God's glory; if, then, there be sin, i.e., if God's honour be wounded, man of himself can give no satisfac tion. But the justice. of God demands satisfaction; and as an insult to infinite honour is in itself infinite, the satisfaction must be infinite, i.e., it must outweigh all that is not God. Such a penalty can only be paid by God Himself, and, as a penalty for man, must be paid under the form of man. Satisfaction is only possible through the God-man. Now this God-man, as sinless, is exempt from the punishment of sin ; His passion is theref ore voluntary, not given as due. The merit of it is therefore infinite; God's justice is thus appeased, and His mercy may extend to man.
Anselm's speculations did not receive, in the middle ages, the respect and attention justly their due. This was probably due to their unsystematic character, for they are generally tracts or dialogues on detached questions, not elaborate treatises like the great works of Albert, Aquinas and Erigena. They have, how ever, a freshness and philosophical vigour, which more than make up for their want of system, and which raise them far above the level of most scholastic writings.
The main sources for the history of St. Anselm and his times are the Vita Anselmi and Historia Novorum by Eadmer, Anselm's chaplain. These were edited by M. Rule in the Rolls Series (1884) . Also Dean Church, St. Anselm, and M. Rule, Life and Times of St. Anselm (1883). The best expositions of Anselm's philosophy are to be found in Domet de Vorges, S. Anselme (19o1) ; A. Daniels, Quellenbeitrage and Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Gottesbeweise (1909) ; J. Fischer, Die Erkentnisslehre Anselms v. Canterbury (191I) ; F. Baemker, Die Lehre Anselms v. Canterbury fiber den Willen (1912) ; C. C. J. Webb, Studies in the History of Natural Theology (1915) ; M. Grabmann, Die Grundgedanken d. hl. A. fiber Seele u. Gott (1916) ; C. Folliatre, La Philos. de S. Anselme (1920) ; C. Boyer, La Verite dans S. Anselme (1921) . See Uberweg, Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie, Teil u. (1928) .