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CHAP. XI

ELEVENTH CENTURY: ITALY

277

and show thyself to my search; for I cannot seek thee unless thou dost teach, nor find thee unless thou dost show thyself.… I make no attempt, Lord, to penetrate thy depths, for my intellect has no such reach; but I desire to understand some measure of thy truth, which my heart believes and loves. I do not seek to know in order that I may believe; but I believe, that I may know. For I believe this also, that unless I shall have believed, I shall not understand."^[1]

So Anselm is first a believer, then a theologian; and his reason devotes itself to the elucidation of his faith. Faith prescribes his intellectual interests, and sets their bounds. His thought does not occupy itself with matters beyond. But it takes a pure intellectual delight in reasoning upon the God which his faith presents and his heart cleaves to. The motive is the intellectual and loving delight which his mind takes in this pursuit. His faith was sure and undisturbed, and ample for his salvation. His intellect, affected by no motive beyond its own strength and joy, delights in reasoning upon the matter of his faith.^[2]

We may still linger for a moment to observe how closely part of Anselm's nature was his proof of the existence of God.^[3] It sprang directly from his saintly soul and the compelling idealism of his reason. In the Monologion Anselm ranged his many arguments concerning the nature and attributes of the summum bonum which is God. Its chain of inductions failed to satisfy him and his pupils. So he set his mind to seek a sole and unconditioned proof (as Eadmer states in the Vita) of God's existence and the

↑ In the Cur Deus homo, i. 2, Anselm has his approved disciple state the same point of view: "As the right order prescribes that we should believe the profundities of the Christian Faith, before presuming to discuss them by reason, so it seems to me neglect if after we are confirmed in faith we do not study to understand what we believe. Wherefore, since by the prevenient grace of God, I deem myself to hold the faith of our redemption, so that even if I could by no reason comprehend what I believe, there is nothing that could pluck me from it, I ask from thee, as many ask, that thou wouldst set forth to me, as thou knowest it, by what necessity and reason, God, being omnipotent, should have assumed the humility and weakness of human nature for its restoration."
↑ There is indeed an early treatise, De grammatico (Migne 158, col. 561–581), in which Anselm seems to abandon himself to dialectic concerned with an academic topic. The question is whether grammaticus, a grammarian, is to be subsumed under the category of substance or quality; dialectically is a grammarian a man or an incident?
↑ Cf. Kaulich, Ges. der scholastischen Philosophie, i. 293–332; Hauréau, Histoire de la philosophie scholastique, i. 242–288; Stockl, Philosophie des Mittelalters, i. 151–208; De Wulf, History of Medieval Philosophy, 3rd ed. Longmans, 1909), p. 162 sqq., and authorities.

[1] In the Cur Deus homo, i. 2, Anselm has his approved disciple state the same point of view: "As the right order prescribes that we should believe the profundities of the Christian Faith, before presuming to discuss them by reason, so it seems to me neglect if after we are confirmed in faith we do not study to understand what we believe. Wherefore, since by the prevenient grace of God, I deem myself to hold the faith of our redemption, so that even if I could by no reason comprehend what I believe, there is nothing that could pluck me from it, I ask from thee, as many ask, that thou wouldst set forth to me, as thou knowest it, by what necessity and reason, God, being omnipotent, should have assumed the humility and weakness of human nature for its restoration."

[2] There is indeed an early treatise, De grammatico (Migne 158, col. 561–581), in which Anselm seems to abandon himself to dialectic concerned with an academic topic. The question is whether grammaticus, a grammarian, is to be subsumed under the category of substance or quality; dialectically is a grammarian a man or an incident?

[3] Cf. Kaulich, Ges. der scholastischen Philosophie, i. 293–332; Hauréau, Histoire de la philosophie scholastique, i. 242–288; Stockl, Philosophie des Mittelalters, i. 151–208; De Wulf, History of Medieval Philosophy, 3rd ed. Longmans, 1909), p. 162 sqq., and authorities.

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