Saint Anselm — Mediæval Theology (ii)

by John Lord, LL. D.    


        In the following year Pope Urban died; and in the  
     following year William Rufus himself was accidentally  
     killed in the New Forest.  His death was not much la-  
     mented, he having proved hard, unscrupulous, cunning  
     and tyrannical.  At this period the kings of England  
     reigned with almost despotic power, independent of bar-  
     ons and oppressive to the people.  William had but  
     little regard for the interests of the kingdom.  He built  
     neither churches nor convents, but Westminster Hall  
     was the memorial of his iron reign.  
        Much was expected of Henry I., who immediately  
     recalled Anselm from Lyons, where he was living in  
     voluntary exile.  He returned to Canterbury, with the  
     firm intention of reforming the morals of the clergy  
     and resisting royal encroachments.  Henry was equally  
     resolved on making bishops as well as nobles subser-  
     vient to him.  Of course harmony and concord could  
     not long exist between such men, with such opposite  
     views.  Even at the first interview of the King with  
     the Archbishop of Salisbury, he demanded a renewal   
     of homage by a new act of investiture, which was vir-  
     tually a continuance of the quarrel.  It was, however,  
     mutually agreed that the matter should be referred to  
     the new pope.  Anselm, on his part, knew that the  
     appeal was hopeless; while the King wished to gain  
     time.  It was not long before the answer of Pope  
     Pascal came.  He was willing that Henry should have  
     many favors, but not this.  Only the head of the  
     Church could bestow the emblems of spiritual author-  
     ity.  On receiving the papal reply the King summoned  
     his nobles and bishops to his court, and required that  
     Anselm should acknowledge he right of the King to  
     invest prelates with the badges of spiritual authority.  
     The result was a second embassy to the Pope, of more  
     distinguished persons,——Archbishop of York and  
     two other prelates.  The Pope, of course, remained  
     inflexible.  On the return of the envoys a great  
     council was assembled in London, and Anselm again  
     was required to submit to the King's will.  It seems  
     that the Pope, from motives of policy (for all the  
     popes were reluctant to quarrel with princes), had  
     given the envoys assurance that, so long as Henry   
     was a good king, he should have nothing to fear from   
     the clergy.   
        These oral declarations were contrary to the Pope's  
     written documents, and this contradiction required a  
     new embassy to Rome; but in the mean time the  
     King gave the See of Salisbury to his chancellor, and   
     that of Hereford to the superintendent of his larder.  
     When the answer of the Pope was finally received, it  
     was found that he indignantly disavowed the verbal  
     message, and excommunicated the three prelates as  
     liars.  But the King was not disconcerted.  He sud-  
     denly appeared at Canterbury, and told Anselm that  
     further opposition would be followed by the royal  
     enmity; yet, mollifying his wrath, requested Anselm   
     himself go to Rome and do what he could with the   
     Pope.  Anselm assured him that he could do nothing  
     to the prejudice of the Church.  He departed, however,  
     the King obviously wishing him out of the way.  
        The second journey of Anselm to Rome was a per-  
     petual ovation, but was of course barren of results.  The  
     Pope remained inflexible, and Anselm prepared to return  
     to England; but, from the friendly hints of the prelates  
     who accompanied him, he sojourned again at Lyons  
     with his friend the archbishop.  Both the Pope and the  
     King had compromised; Anselm alone was straightfor-  
     ward and fearless.  As a consequence his revenues were  
     seized, and he remained in exile.  He had been willing   
     to do the Pope's bidding, had he made an exception to  
     the canons; but so long as the law remained in force  
     he had nothing to do but conform to it.  He remained  
     in Lyons a year and a half, while Henry continued  his  
     negotiations with Pascal; but finding nothing was   
     accomplished, Anselm resolved to excommunicate his  
     sovereign.  The report of this intention alarmed Henry,  
     then preparing for a decisive conflict with his brother  
     Robert.  The excommunication would at least be in-  
     convenient; it might cost him his crown.  So he  
     sought an interview with Anselm at the castle of l'Aigle,  
     and became outwardly reconciled, and restored to him  
     his revenues.  
        "The end of the dreary contest came at last, in 1107,  
     after vexatious delays and intrigues."  It was settled   
     by compromise,——as most quarrels are settled, as most  
     institutions are established.  Outwardly the King yield-  
     ed.  He agreed, in an assembly of nobles, bishops, and  
     abbots at London, that henceforth no one should be  
     invested with bishopric or abbacy, either by king or  
     layman, by the customary badges of ring and crosier.   
     Anselm, on his part, agreed that no prelate should be  
     refused consecration who was nominated by the King.  
     The appointment of bishops remained with the King;  
     but the consecration could be withheld by the primate,  
     since he alone had the right to give the badges of office,  
     without which spiritual functions could not be lawfully  
     performed.  It was a moral victory to the Church, but  
     the victory of an unpopular cause.  It cemented the  
     power of the Pope, while freedom from papal interfer-  
     ence has ever been dear to the English nation.    
        When Anselm had fought this great fight he died,  
     1109, in the sixteenth year of his reign as primate of the  
     Church in England, and was buried, next to Lanfranc,  
     in his abbey church.  His career outwardly is memora-  
     ble only for this contest, which was afterwards renewed  
     by Thomas Becket with a greater king than either Wil-  
     liam Rufus or Henry I.  It s interesting, since it was a  
     part of the great struggle between the spiritual and tem-  
     poral powers for two hundred years,——from Hildebrand  
     to Innocent III.  This was only one of the phases of  
     the quarrel,——one of the battles of a long war,——not  
     between popes and emperors, as in Germany and Italy,  
     but between a king and the viceregent of a pope; a king  
     and his subject, that one armed with secular, the other  
     with spiritual, weapons.  It was only brought to an end  
     by an appeal to the fears of men,——the dread of ex-  
     communication and consequent torments in hell, which  
     was the great governing idea of the Middle Ages, the  
     means by which the clergy controlled the laity.  Abused  
     and perverted as this idea was, it indicates a presup-  
     poses a general belief in the personality of God, in re-  
     wards and punishments in a future state, and the neces-  
     sity of conforming to the divine laws as expounded  
     and enforced by the Christian Church.  Hence the dark  
     ages have been called "Ages of Faith."   

        It now remains to us to contemplate Anselm as a  
     theologian and philosopher,——a more interesting view,  
     for in this aspect his character is more genial, and his  
     influence more extended and permanent.  He is one of  
     the first who revived theological studies in Europe.  He  
     did not teach in the universities as a scholastic doctor,  
     but he was one who prepared the way for universities  
     by the stimulus he gave to philosophy.  It was in his  
     abbey of Bec that he laid the foundation of a new  
     school of theological inquiry.  In original genius he  
     was surprised by no scholastic in the Middle Ages,  
     although both Abélard and Thomas Aquinas enjoyed a  
     greater fame.  It was for his learning and sanctity that  
     he was canonized,——and singularly enough by Alexan-  
     der VI., the worst pope who ever reigned.  Still more  
     singular is it that the last of his successors, as abbot of   
     Bec, was the diplomatist Talleyrand,——one of the most  
     worldly and secular of all the ecclesiastical dignitaries  
     of an infidel age.  
        The theology of the Middle Ages, of which Anselm  
     was one of the greatest expounders, certainly the most  
     profound, was that which was systematized by Saint  
     Augustine from the writings of Paul.  Augustine was  
     the oracle of the Latin Church until the Council of  
     Trent, and nominally his authority has never been  
     repudiated by the Catholic Church.  But he was no  
     more the father of the Catholic theology than he was of  
     the Protestants, as taught by John Calvin: these two  
     great theologians were in harmony in all essential doc-  
     trines as completely as were Augustine and Anselm, or  
     Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.  The doctrines of  
     theology, as formulated by Augustine, were subjects of  
     contemplation and study in all the convents of the  
     Middle Ages.  In spite of the prevailing ignorance, it  
     was impossible that inquiring men, "secluded in gloomy   
     monasteries, should find food for their minds in the dreary  
     and monotonous duties to which monks were   
     doomed,——a life devoted to alternate manual labor and  
     mechanical religious services."  There would be some  
     of them who would speculate on the lofty subjects which  
     were the constant theme s of their meditations.  Bishops  
     were absorbed in their practical duties as executive   
     rulers.  Village priests were too ignorant to do much  
     beyond looking after the wants and hinds and peasants.  
     The only scholarly men were the monks.  And although  
     the number of these was small, they have the honor of   
     creating the first intellectual movement since the fall of  
     the Roman Empire.  They alone combined leisure with  
     brain-work.  These intellectual and inquiring monks, as   
     far back as the ninth century speculated on the great   
     subjects of Christian faith with singular boldness, con-  
     sidering the general ignorance which veiled Europe in  
     melancholy darkness.  Some of them were logically led   
     "to a secret mutiny and insurrection" against the doc-  
     trines which were universally received.  This insurrec-  
     tion of human intelligence gave great alarm to the  
     orthodox leaders of the Church; and to suppress it  
     the Church raised up conservative dialecticians as acute  
     and able as those who strove for emancipation.  At first  
     they used the weapons of natural reason, but afterwards   
     employed the logic and method of Aristotle, as trans-  
     lated into Latin from the Arabic, to assist them in their  
     intellectual combats.  Gradually the movement cen-  
     tred in the scholastic philosophy, as a bulwark to  
     Catholic theology.  But this was nearly a hundred  
     years after the time of Anselm, who himself was not  
     enslaved by the technicalities of a complicated system   
     of dialectics.  
        Naturally the first subject which was suggested to  
     the minds of inquiring monks was the being and at-  
     tributes of God.  He was the beginning and end of  
     their meditations.  It was to meditate upon God that  
     the Oriental recluse sought the deserts of Asia Minor  
     and Egypt.  Like the Eastern monk of the fourth cen-  
     tury, he sought to know the essence and nature of the  
     Deity he worshipped.  There arose before his mind  
     the great doctrines of the trinity, the incarnation, and  
     redemption.  Closely connected with these were predes-   
     tination and grace, and then "fixed fate, free-will, fore-  
     knowledge absolute."  On these mysteries he could not  
     help meditating; and with meditation came speculation  
     on unfathomable subjects pertaining to God and his re-  
     lations with man, to the nature of sin and its penalty,  
     to the freedom of the will, and eternal decrees.  
        The monk became first a theologian and then a phi-  
     losopher, whether of the school of Plato or of Aris-  
     totle he did not know.  He began to speculate on ques-  
     tions which had agitated the Grecian schools,——the  
     origin of evil and of matter; whether the world was  
     created or uncreated; whether there is a distinction be-  
     tween things visible and invisible; whether we derive  
     our knowledge from sensation or reflection; whether  
     the soul is necessarily immortal; how free-will is to be  
     reconciled with God's eternal decrees, or what the Greeks  
     called Fate; whether ideas are eternal, or are the crea-  
     tion of our own minds.  These, and other more subtile  
     questions——like the nature of angels——began to agitate  
     the convent in the ninth century.  
        It was then that the monk Gottschalk revived the  
     question of predestination, which had slumbered since  
     the time of Saint Augustine.  Although the Bishop of  
     Hippo was the oracle of the Church, and no one dis-  
     puted his authority, it would seem that his character-  
     istic doctrine,——that of grace; the essential doctrine  
     of Luther also,——was never a favorite one wit the  
     great churchmen of the Middle Ages.  They did not  
     dispute Saint Augustine, but they adhered to penances  
     and expiations, which entered so largely into the piety  
     of the Middle Ages.  The idea of penances and expia-  
     tions, pushed to their utmost logical sequence, was sal-  
     vation by works and not by faith.  Grace, as understood  
     by the Fathers, was closely allied to predestination; it  
     disdained the elaborate and cumbrous machinery of  
     ecclesiastical discipline, on which the power of the   
     clergy was based.  Grace was opposed to penance, while  
     penance was the form which religion took; and as  
     predestination was a theological sequence of grace, it  
     was distasteful to the Mediæval Church.  Both grace   
     and predestination tended to undermine the system of  
     penance then universally accepted.  The great church-  
     men of the Middle Ages were plainly at war with their  
     great oracle in this matter, without being fully aware   
     of their real antagonism.  So they made an onslaught  
     on Gottschalk, as opposed to those ideas on which sacerdo-  
     tal power rested,——especially did Hincmar, Archbishop  
     of Rhiems, the greatest prelate of the age.  Persecuted,  
     Gottschalk appealed to reason rather than authority,  
     thus anticipating Luther by five hundred years,——an  
     immense heresy in the Middle Ages.  Hincmar, not  
     being able to grapple with the monk in argument, sum-  
     mone to his aid the brightest intellect of that country,  
     ——the first man who really gave an impulse to philo-  
     sophical inquiries in the Middle Ages, the true founder  
     of scholasticism.  
        This man was John Scotus Erigina,——or John the  
     Erin-born,——who was also a monk, and whose early days  
     had been spent in some secluded monastery in Ireland,  
     or the Scottish islands.  Somehow he attracted the at-  
     tention of Charles the Bald, A. D. 843, an became his  
     guest and chosen companion.  And yet, while he lived  
     in the court, he spent the most of his time in intellec-  
     tual seclusion.  As a guest of the king he may have  
     become acquainted with Hincmar, or his acquaintance  
     with Hincmar may have led to his friendship with  
     Charles.  He was witty, bright, and learned, like Abé-  
     lard, a favorite with the great.  In his treatise on  
     Predestination, in which he combated the views of  
     Gottschalk, he probably went further than Hincmar   
     desired or expected: he boldly asserted the supremacy  
     of reason, and threw off the shackles of authority.  He  
     combated Saint Augustine as well as Gottschalk.  He  
     even aspired to reconcile free-will with the divine sove-  
     reignty,——the great mistake of theologians in every  
     age, the most hopeless and the most ambitious effort  
     of human genius,——a problem which cannot be solved.  
     He went even further than this: he attempted to har-  
     monize philosophy with religion, as Abélard did after-  
     wards.  He brought all theological questions to the test  
     of dialectical reasoning.  Thus the ninth century saw a  
     rationalist and a pantheist at the court of a Christian  
     king.  Like Democritus, he maintained the eternity of   
     matter.  Like a Buddhist, he believed that God is all  
     things and all things are God.  Such doctrines were   
     not to be tolerated, even in an age when theological  
     speculations did not usually provoke persecution.  Re-  
     ligious persecution for opinions was the fruit of subse-  
     quent inquiries, and did not reach its height until the  
     Dominicans arose in the thirteenth century.  But Eri-  
     gena was generally denounced; he fell under the cen-  
     sure of the Pope, and, probably on that account, took  
     refuge about the year 882 in England,——it is said at  
     Oxford, where there was probably a cathedral school,  
     but not as yet a university, with its professors' chairs  
     and scholastic honors.  Others suppose that he died in  
     Paris, 891.  
        A spirit of inquiry having been thus awakened among  
     a few intellectual monks, they began to speculate about  
     those questions which had agitated the Grecian schools:  
     whether genera and species——called "universals," or  
     ideas——have a substantial and independent existence,  
     or whether they are the creation of our own minds;  
     whether, if they have a real existence, they are ma-  
     terial or immaterial essences; whether they exist apart   
     from objects perceptible by the senses.  It is singular  
     that such questions should have been discussed in the  
     ninth century, since neither Plato nor Aristotle were  
     studied.  Unless in the Irish monastic schools, it may  
     be doubted whether there was a Greek scholar in  
     Western Europe,——or even in Rome.  
        No very remarkable man arose with a rationaliz-  
     ing spirit, after Erigena, until Berengar of Tours in the  
     eleventh century, who maintained that in the Sacra-  
     ment the presence of the body of Christ involves no   
     change in the nature and essence of the bread and  
     wine.  He was opposed by Lanfranc.  But the doc-  
     trine of transubstantiation was too deeply grounded  
     in the faith of Christendom to be easily shaken.  Con-   
     troversies seemed to centre around the doctrine of the  
     real existence of ideas,——what are called "universals,"  
     ——which doctrine was generally accepted.  The monks,  
     in this matter, followed Saint Augustine, who was a  
     realist, as were also the orthodox leaders of the Church  
     generally from his time to that of Saint Bernard.  It   
     was a sequence of the belief in the doctrine of the  
     Trinity.  
        No one of mark opposed the Realism which had now  
     become one of the accepted philosophical opinions of  
     the age, until Roscelin, in the latter part of the eleventh   
     century, denied that universals have a real existence.  
     It was Plato's doctrine that universals have an inde-  
     pendent existence apart from individual objects, and  
     that they exist before the latter (universalia ANTE rem,  
     ——the thought before the thing); while Aristotle main-  
     tained that universals, though possessing a real exist-  
     ence, exist only in individual objects (universalia IN re,  
     ——the thought in the thing).  Nominalism is the doc-  
     trine that individuals only have real existence (univer-  
     salia POST rem,——the thought after the thing).  
        It is not probable that this profound question about  
     universals would have excited much interest among the  
     intellectual monks of the eleventh century, had it not  
     been applied to theological subjects, in which chiefly  
     they were absorbed.  Now Roscelin advanced the doc-  
     trine, that, if the three persons in the Trinity were one  
     thing, it would follow that the Father and the Holy  
     Ghost must have entered into the flesh together with   
     the son; and as he believed that only individuals   
     exist in reality, it would follow that the three per-  
     sons of the Godhead are three substances, in fact three  
     Gods.  Thus Nominalism logically led to an assault  
     on the received doctrine of the Trinity——the central  
     point in the theology of the Church.  This was heresy.  
     The foundations of Christian belief were attacked, and  
     no one in that age was strong enough to come to the  
     rescue but Anselm, then Abbot of Bec.  
        His great service to the cause of Christian theol-  
     ogy, and therefore to the Church universal, was his  
     exposition of thelogical results of the Nominalism of  
     Roscelin,——to whom universals, or ideas, were merely    
     creations of the mind, or conventional phrases, having    
     no real existence.  Hence such things as love, friend-  
     ship, beauty, justice, were only conceptions.  Plato  
     and Augustine maintained that they are eternal veri-  
     ties, not to be explained by definitions, appealing to  
     consciousness, in the firm belief in which the soul  
     sustains itself; that there can be no certain knowl-  
     edge without a recognition of these; that from these  
     only sound deductions of moral truth can be drawn;  
     that without a firm belief in these eternal certitudes  
     there can be no repose and no lofty faith.  These  
     ideas are independent of us.  They do not vary with   
     our changing sensations; they have nothing to do  
     with sensation. They are not creations of the brain;  
     they inherently exist, from all eternity.  The substance  
     of these ideas is God; without these we could not  
     conceive of God.  Augustine especially, in the true  
     spirit of Platonism, abhorred doctrines which made  
     the existence of God depend upon our own abstrac-  
     tions.  To him there was a reality in love, in friend-  
     ship, in justice, in beauty; and he repelled scepticism  
     as to their eternal existence, as life repels death.  
        Roscelin took away the platform from whose lofty  
     heights Socrates and Plato would survey the universe.  
     He attacked the citadel in which Augustine intrenched  
     himself amid the desolations of a dissolving world; he  
     laid the axe at the root of the tree which sheltered all  
     those who would fly from uncertainty and despair.  
        But if these ideas were not true, what was true; on  
     what were the hopes of the world to be based; where  
     was consolation for the miseries of life to be found?  
     "There are many goods," says Anselm, "which we  
     desire,——some for utility, and others for beauty; but  
     all these goods are relative,——more or less good,——and  
     imply something absolutely good.  The absolute good  
     ——the summum bonum——is God.  In like manner all  
     that is great and high are only relatively great and   
     high; and hence there must be something absolutely  
     great and high, and this is God.  There must exist  
     at least one being than which no other s higher;  
     hence there must be but one such being,——and this  
     is God."  
        It was thus that Anselm brought philosophy to the  
     support of theology.  He would combat the philosophi-  
     cal reasoning of Roscelin with still keener dialectics.  
     He would conquer him on his own ground and with  
     his own weapons.  
        Let it not be supposed that this controversy about  
     universals was a mere dialectical tournament, with no  
     grand results.  It goes down to the root of almost every  
     great subject in philosophy and religion.  The denial of  
     universal ideas is rationalism and materialism in phi-  
     losophy, as it is Pelagianism and Arminianism in the-  
     ology.  The Nominalism of Roscelin appeared in the  
     Rationalism of Abélard; and, carried out to its severe  
     logical sequences, is the refusal to accept any doctrine  
     which cannot be proved by reason.  Hence nothing is  
     to be accepted which is beyond the province of reason  
     to explain; and hence nothing is to be received by  
     faith alone.  Christianity, in the hands of fearless and  
     logical nominalists, would melt away,——that is, what  
     is peculiar in its mysterious dogmas.  Its mysterious  
     dogmas were the anchors of belief in ages of faith.  It  
     was these which animated the existence of such men  
     as Augustine, Bernard, Anselm, and Thomas Aquinas.  
     Hence their terrible antagonism even to philosophical  
     doctrines which conflicted with the orthodox belief,  
     on which, as they thought, the salvation of mankind  
     rested.   
        But Anselm did not rest with combating the Nomi-  
     nalism of Roscelin.  In the course of his inquiries and  
     arguments he felt t necessary to establish the belief in  
     God——the one great thing from which all other ques-  
     tions radiated——by a new argument, and on firmer  
     ground than that on which it had hitherto rested.  He  
     was profoundly devotional as well as logical, and origi-  
     nal as he was learned.  Beyond all the monks of his  
     age he lived in the contemplation of God.  God was to  
     hi the essence of all good, the end of all inquiries,  
     the joy and repose of his soul.  He could not under-  
     stand unless he first believed; knowledge was the  
     fruit of faith, not the cause.  The idea of God in the  
     mind of man is the highest proof of the existence of  
     God.  That only is real which appeals to conscious-  
     ness.  He did not care to reason about a thing when  
     reasoning would not strengthen his convictions,per-  
     haps involve him in doubts and perplexities.  Reason  
     is finite and clouded and warped.  But that which di-  
     rectly appeals to consciousness (as all that is eternal  
     must appeal), and to that alone, like beauty and justice  
     asnd love,——ultimate ideas to which reasoning and defi-  
     nitions add nothing,——is to be received as a final certi-  
     tude.  Hence, absolute certainty of the existence of  
     God, as it appeals to consciousness,——like the "Cogito,  
     ergo sum."  In this argument he anticipates Descartes,  
     and proved himself the profoundest thinker of his cen-  
     tury, perhaps of five centuries.  
        The deductions which Anselm made from the at-  
     tributes of God and his moral government seem to  
     have strengthened the belief of the Middle Ages in  
     some theological aspects which are repulsive to con-  
     sciousness,——his stronghold; thereby showing how one-  
     sided any deductions are apt to be when pushed out to  
     their utmost logical consequences; how they may even  
     become a rebuke to human reason in those grand efforts  
     of which reason is most proud, for theology, it must be  
     borne in mind, is a science of deductions from acknowl-  
     edged truths of revelation.  Hence, from the imperfec-  
     tions of reason, or from disregard of other established    
     theology subordinate to philosophy.  It was his main  
     effort to establish, on rational grounds, the existence of   
     God, and afterwards the doctrine of the Trinity and  
     the Incarnation.  And yet with Anselm and Roscelin  
     the Scholastic age began.  They were the founders of  
     the Realists and the Nominalists,——those two schools   
     which divided the Church in the twelfth and thir-  
     teenth centuries, and which will probably go on to-  
     gether, under different names, as long as men shall  
     believe and doubt.  But this subject, on which I have  
     only entered, must be deferred to the next lecture.     



                    AUTHORITIES.   

        Church's Life of Saint Anselm; Neander's Church History; Milham's  
     History of the Latin Church; Stockl's History of the Philosophy of the  
     Middle Ages; Ueberweg's History of Philosophy; Wordsworth's Ecclesi-  
     astical Biography; Trench's Mediæval Church History; Digby's Ages of  
     Faith; Fleury's Ecclesiastical History; Dupin's Ecclesiastical History;  
     Biographie Universelle; M. Rousselot's Histoire de la Pilosophie du  
     Moyen Age; Newman's Mission of the Benedictine Order; Dugale's  
     Monasticon; Hallam's Literature of Europe; Hampden's article on the  
     Scholastic Philosophy, in Encyclopædia Metropolitana.   

from Beacon Lights of History, by John Lord, LL. D.,
Volume III, Part I: The Middle Ages, pp. 192 - 212
©1883, by John Lord.
©1921, By Wm. H. Wise & Co., New York