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Amselm

30

Anselm

with firmness in maintaining what he believed to be right, and in reproving what he believed to be wrong. Thus his writings completely verify the statement of William of Malmesbury (i. § 47) that he was thoroughly spiritual and industriously learned—‘penitus sanctus, anxie doctus.’

The first complete and satisfactory edition of Anselm's works was that of Gabriel Gerberon (Paris, 1721), a monk of the congregation of St. Maur. He says in his preface that hitherto most of the copies of his works were so mutilated or disfigured by corrections that they were scarcely intelligible. He framed a new text by a careful collation of as many manuscripts as he could collect, and an examination of existing printed editions. These were—two bearing no mark of date or place of issue; one printed at Nuremberg, 1491; two at Paris, 1544 and 1549; one at Venice, 1549; two at Cologne, 1573 and 1612; and one at Lyons, 1630. Gerberon arranged the works in his edition in three divisions:—

1. The theological and philosophical, including the Monologion, the Proslogion, the attack of Gaunilo, a monk of Marmoutiers, on the same, and Anselm's reply; the ‘De Fide Trinitatis,’ the ‘De Processione Spiritus Sancti contra Græcos,’ ‘Dialogus de Casu Diaboli,’ ‘Cur Deus Homo,’ ‘De Conceptu Virginali et Originali Peccato,’ ‘Dialogus de Veritate,’ ‘Liber de Voluntate,’ ‘Dialogus de Libero Arbitrio,’ ‘De Concordiâ Præscientiæ et Prædestinationis,’ ‘De Azymo et Fermentato,’ ‘De Sacramentorum Diversitate (Waleranni epistola),’ ‘Responsio ad Waleranni Querelas,’ ‘Offendiculum Sacerdotum,’ ‘De Nuptiis Consanguineorum,’ ‘Dialogus de Grammatico,’ ‘De Voluntate Dei.’

2. Devotional and hortatory: ‘Homilies and Exhortations,’ ‘Sermo de Passione Domini,’ ‘Exhortatio ad Contemptum Temporalium et Desiderium Æternorum,’ ‘Admonitio Morienti,’ ‘Duo Carmina de Contemptu Mundi,’ ‘Liber Meditationum et Orationum xxi.,’ ‘Meditatio super Miserere,’ ‘De Pace et Concordiâ,’ ‘Tractatus Asceticus,’ ‘Oratio dicenda ante Perceptionem Corporis et Sanguinis Domini,’ ‘Salutatio ad Jesum Christum ex anecdotis sacris de Levis,’ ‘Hymni et Psalterium de S. Mariâ,’ ‘Versus de Lanfranco,’ ‘De Verbis Anselmi,’ ‘Quædam Dicta utilia ex dictis S. Anselmi.’

3. Four books of letters.

The Abbé Migne's edition, in two volumes, imperial octavo, is a reproduction of Gerberon's edition, revised, including the footnotes of ‘Henschenius,’ and the ‘Vita’ and ‘Historia Novorum’ of Eadmer. The ‘various readings’ are in this edition placed at the bottom of each page instead of being put at the end of the works, as in Gerberon's edition. The references in this article are to Migne's edition.

[The primary authorities for the life of Anselm are the two works by Eadmer, a monk of Canterbury, afterwards bishop-elect of St. Andrews, which were edited by Mr. Rule in the Rolls Series in 1884. After Anselm became primate, Eadmer was his domestic chaplain and most intimate friend, and was an eye-witness of most of the events which he relates. He first wrote the ‘Historia Novorum,’ which might be called a ‘Life and Times of Anselm,’ and the ‘Vita Anselmi,’ which deals more with the inner personal life and character of his subject. William of Malmesbury (Gesta Pontificum, lib. i.) and John of Salisbury, Bishop of Chartres (Life of Anselm in ‘Anglia Sacra,’ vol. ii.), although they supply a few details of their own, avowedly draw their accounts mainly from Eadmer, and Ordericus Vitalis, in his scanty notices (Hist. Eccles. lib. x. and xi.), refers his readers to the same source for further information. Next to the memoirs of Eadmer in value are Anselm's own letters, upwards of four hundred in number, which throw much light not only on his life but on the history of the times. The principal modern biographies are by: 1. Möhler, formerly Roman catholic professor at Munich, a fragment only, but good as far as it goes, translated into English in 1842. 2. Hasse, protestant professor at Bonn, 1843, 1852. 3. Franck, Tübingen, 1842. 4. Charles de Rémusat, Paris, 1853, and second edition 1868, an excellent biography with an able and lucid criticism of Anselm's philosophy. In connection with the latter may be mentioned a critique on the philosophy by M. Emile Saisset, in a volume of miscellanies, ‘Mélange d'Histoire, de Morale, et de Critique,’ which was originally written as a review of M. Rémusat's work for the ‘Revue des Deux-Mondes;’ also a translation of the Monologion and Proslogion, with an introductory essay by H. Bouchitté, in ‘Le Rationalisme Chrétien.’ 5. M. Charma, Paris, 1853, a short but interesting study with a companion one on Lanfranc. 6. Montalembert, a short fragment of much beauty, 1844. 7. Crozet Mouchet (Paris and Tournai), 1859, valuable for what relates to the early life at Aosta. 8. R. W. Church, dean of St. Paul's, London, a masterly sketch, accurate, vigorous, and graceful, and as full as was possible within the prescribed limits of the series for which it was written, Macmillan's Sunday Library. 9. Mr. E. A. Freeman has dealt twice over most carefully with the history of Anselm, first in his ‘History of the Norman Conquest,’ vols. iii., iv. and v. (also notices in i. 355, 564, and ii. 25, 215, 217), and again more fully in his ‘History of the Reign of William Rufus,’ vol. i. ch. iv., and vol. ii. ch. vii. (see also an interesting note on Anselm's letters, Y in appendix). His narratives are especially valuable for the minute and exact references

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