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The Prayers and Meditations of St. Anselm & The Proslogion
Anselm of Aosta wrote the majority of his Prayers and Meditations between 1070 and 1080 and created a tradition of intimate, intensely personal prayer that drastically altered the Christian attitude to private devotion. Anselm's ardor, literary brilliance, and scrupulous theology have secured him admiration. And, as Archbishop of Canterbury, his tussle with the early Norman kings earned him a place in secular history as well.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1080
About the author
Anselm of Canterbury
190 books95 followersborn 1033
People best know Italian-born English theological philosopher and prelate Saint Anselm for his ontological argument for the existence of God.
He entered the Benedictine order at the abbey of Bec at the age of 27 years in 1060 and served as abbot in 1079.
Anselm, a Benedictine monk of monastery at Bec, from 1093 held the office of the Church of archbishop of Canterbury. Called the founder of scholasticism, this major famous originator of the satisfaction theory of atonement influenced the west. He served as archbishop of Canterbury under William II. From 1097, people exiled him to 1100.
As a result of the investiture controversy, the most significant conflict between Church and state in Medieval Europe, Henry I again from 1105 exiled him to 1107.
A bull of Clement XI, pope, proclaimed Anselm a doctor of the Church in 1720 . We celebrate his feast day annually on 21 April.
People best know Italian-born English theological philosopher and prelate Saint Anselm for his ontological argument for the existence of God.
He entered the Benedictine order at the abbey of Bec at the age of 27 years in 1060 and served as abbot in 1079.
Anselm, a Benedictine monk of monastery at Bec, from 1093 held the office of the Church of archbishop of Canterbury. Called the founder of scholasticism, this major famous originator of the satisfaction theory of atonement influenced the west. He served as archbishop of Canterbury under William II. From 1097, people exiled him to 1100.
As a result of the investiture controversy, the most significant conflict between Church and state in Medieval Europe, Henry I again from 1105 exiled him to 1107.
A bull of Clement XI, pope, proclaimed Anselm a doctor of the Church in 1720 . We celebrate his feast day annually on 21 April.
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November 1, 2021
The prayers of Anselm of Aosta will inspire the devout; and the student of medieval history, whether devout or not, will benefit from a reading of Anselm’s meditations and prayers – and particularly from a review of the Proslogion, a short book of reflections in which Anselm sets forth his sense of the nature of God, with what he hopes will serve for the reader as logical proof of God's existence.
Anselm was born in 1033, into a noble family in the town of Aosta in the Alpine region of northwestern Italy. Though a life of aristocratic wealth and status was open to him, it eventually became apparent that his interest was in the life of the spirit; he withdrew from the world in which he could have enjoyed a lifetime of privilege, and began his career as a monk at a monastery in Normandy in 1059. His insights as a theologian and skill as a writer contributed to his rise within the church hierarchy, and in 1093 King William II nominated him Archbishop of Canterbury.
Listed as a saint as early as 1170, around the time of the murder of Thomas à Becket, Anselm of Aosta was formally canonized toward the end of the 15th century – for which reason he is also widely known as Saint Anselm of Canterbury. That it might sound strange to a modern reader to hear of an Italian Catholic being named Archbishop of Canterbury speaks to the immensity of the changes that have occurred in Western Christianity since Anselm’s time.
This Penguin Books edition of Anselm’s work benefits from a thoughtful and helpful introduction, written by Sister Benedicta Ward. Sister Benedicta is an Oxford University theology professor who is also a member of the Sisters of the Love of God, an Anglican community of women who seek God through prayer and contemplation in a state of withdrawal from the temporal world – a state of living that is somewhat similar to that from which Anselm of Aosta wrote the Proslogion and his prayers and meditation. Sister Benedicta has very specific recommendations regarding how the prayers are to be read:
[T]he prayers are meant to be said in solitude, and the aim is to stir the mind out of its inertia to know itself thoroughly and so come to contrition and the love of God. This is to be done by a quiet and thoughtful reading of the text of the prayers, but only as much of them as achieves this aim; they are not to be read for the interest of reading them but as a way into prayer... (p. 51).
Yet whether you read Anselm’s work as a way into prayer, or for insights into the life of the mind during the Middle Ages, these works are likely to make a lasting impression upon you.
This volume of the work of Anselm of Aosta begins with prayers to God (presumably to the Triune God, and not merely to God the Father), and to Jesus Christ as God the Son, along with a prayer to the Holy Cross that is couched in such a way as to remind the Christian believer of the cross on which Jesus of Nazareth died sometime around the year 33 A.D. A “Prayer Before Receiving the Body and Blood of Christ” reminds the reader just how very Catholic these prayers are; Anselm’s reflections on Holy Communion are couched in terms of the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, the belief that the bread and wine literally become the body and blood of Jesus Christ:
Thank you for the good gift
Of this your holy Body and Blood,
Which I desire to receive, as cleansing from sin,
And for a defence against it.
Lord, I acknowledge that I am far from worthy
To approach and touch this sacrament;
But I trust in that mercy
Which caused you to lay down your life for sinners
That they might be justified,
And because you gave yourself
Willingly as a holy sacrifice to the Father. (p. 100)
The prayers that follow are offered to the Virgin Mary as Mother of God; to Saint John the Baptist, whose ministry foretold that of Jesus Christ; to Saint Peter as the first pope; and to Saint Paul as the author of the epistles that helped spread the gospel of Christ throughout the world. In each case, Anselm shows his familiarity with the Biblical passages relevant to that figure from the New Testament, and couches his pleas for that saint’s help in terms of what that saint is recorded as having said or done in the Bible – as with this passage from the prayer to Saint Paul:
Lord God, you said to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you.”
St. Paul, you said, “I can do all things”;
And see, the effect of your words is that this dead man
Waits for this hope to be realized.
You have spoken, and hearing you the dead man hopes.
You have promised, and the dead man desires to pray. (p. 150)
Other prayers to saints follow – each one couched in terms of the particular role that each saint plays in Catholic tradition. Saint John the Evangelist is addressed as “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” the Apostle with whom Jesus of Nazareth had a particularly close friendship – and the only Apostle who stood by Jesus at the Crucifixion, when all the other Apostles had fled; no fear of death or torture would keep John from being there for his friend. Saint Stephen is addressed as Christianity’s first martyr; Saint Nicholas, as the great confessor; Saint Benedict, as the founder of monasticism; Saint Mary Magdalene, as a woman whose prior life of fleshly sin was redeemed by the spiritual love of Jesus.
My dearest lady,
Well you know by your own life
How a sinful soul can be reconciled with its creator,
What counsel a soul in misery needs,
What medicine will restore the sick to health. (p. 201)
These prayers partake of the long-standing tradition of intercession – the idea that asking a saint to speak on one’s behalf to God can be an important step forward toward forgiveness, reconciliation, and reunion with God. At the same time, the deeply personal quality of these prayers might appeal to many Protestants – for whom, traditionally, the idea of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ holds great importance.
In terms of the intellectual history of the West, the Proslogion is probably Anselm’s most important work. Going back and forth between passages of prose and prayer, this short book of 26 chapters represents Anselm’s attempt “to find one single argument, needing no other proof than itself, to prove that God really exists” (p. 238).
The Proslogion, the title of which draws from the Latin proslogium (“discourse”), seems, in its efforts to establish an ontological proof of the existence of God, to draw upon Aristotle’s concept of the “unmoved mover” from the Metaphysics. And readers who appreciate the Zen Buddhist concept of the koan (a seeming paradox that resolves itself only after deep and sustained contemplation) might find it interesting to watch Anselm struggle with seeming contradictions within the Christian faith, as with his consideration of the idea that God can forgive the wicked: “[A]lthough one can see why you should deal out good to the good and bad to the bad, what is indeed to be wondered at is why you who are entirely righteous and want for nothing should give good gifts to your wicked and guilty sons” (p. 250).
With meditations and letters of Anselm, as well as a helpful appendix chronicling the development of the prayers and discussing their importance in ecclesiastical and intellectual history, this edition of the work of Anselm of Aosta is a striking and invigorating look into the faith journey of an exceptionally gifted philosopher and writer.
Anselm was born in 1033, into a noble family in the town of Aosta in the Alpine region of northwestern Italy. Though a life of aristocratic wealth and status was open to him, it eventually became apparent that his interest was in the life of the spirit; he withdrew from the world in which he could have enjoyed a lifetime of privilege, and began his career as a monk at a monastery in Normandy in 1059. His insights as a theologian and skill as a writer contributed to his rise within the church hierarchy, and in 1093 King William II nominated him Archbishop of Canterbury.
Listed as a saint as early as 1170, around the time of the murder of Thomas à Becket, Anselm of Aosta was formally canonized toward the end of the 15th century – for which reason he is also widely known as Saint Anselm of Canterbury. That it might sound strange to a modern reader to hear of an Italian Catholic being named Archbishop of Canterbury speaks to the immensity of the changes that have occurred in Western Christianity since Anselm’s time.
This Penguin Books edition of Anselm’s work benefits from a thoughtful and helpful introduction, written by Sister Benedicta Ward. Sister Benedicta is an Oxford University theology professor who is also a member of the Sisters of the Love of God, an Anglican community of women who seek God through prayer and contemplation in a state of withdrawal from the temporal world – a state of living that is somewhat similar to that from which Anselm of Aosta wrote the Proslogion and his prayers and meditation. Sister Benedicta has very specific recommendations regarding how the prayers are to be read:
[T]he prayers are meant to be said in solitude, and the aim is to stir the mind out of its inertia to know itself thoroughly and so come to contrition and the love of God. This is to be done by a quiet and thoughtful reading of the text of the prayers, but only as much of them as achieves this aim; they are not to be read for the interest of reading them but as a way into prayer... (p. 51).
Yet whether you read Anselm’s work as a way into prayer, or for insights into the life of the mind during the Middle Ages, these works are likely to make a lasting impression upon you.
This volume of the work of Anselm of Aosta begins with prayers to God (presumably to the Triune God, and not merely to God the Father), and to Jesus Christ as God the Son, along with a prayer to the Holy Cross that is couched in such a way as to remind the Christian believer of the cross on which Jesus of Nazareth died sometime around the year 33 A.D. A “Prayer Before Receiving the Body and Blood of Christ” reminds the reader just how very Catholic these prayers are; Anselm’s reflections on Holy Communion are couched in terms of the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, the belief that the bread and wine literally become the body and blood of Jesus Christ:
Thank you for the good gift
Of this your holy Body and Blood,
Which I desire to receive, as cleansing from sin,
And for a defence against it.
Lord, I acknowledge that I am far from worthy
To approach and touch this sacrament;
But I trust in that mercy
Which caused you to lay down your life for sinners
That they might be justified,
And because you gave yourself
Willingly as a holy sacrifice to the Father. (p. 100)
The prayers that follow are offered to the Virgin Mary as Mother of God; to Saint John the Baptist, whose ministry foretold that of Jesus Christ; to Saint Peter as the first pope; and to Saint Paul as the author of the epistles that helped spread the gospel of Christ throughout the world. In each case, Anselm shows his familiarity with the Biblical passages relevant to that figure from the New Testament, and couches his pleas for that saint’s help in terms of what that saint is recorded as having said or done in the Bible – as with this passage from the prayer to Saint Paul:
Lord God, you said to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you.”
St. Paul, you said, “I can do all things”;
And see, the effect of your words is that this dead man
Waits for this hope to be realized.
You have spoken, and hearing you the dead man hopes.
You have promised, and the dead man desires to pray. (p. 150)
Other prayers to saints follow – each one couched in terms of the particular role that each saint plays in Catholic tradition. Saint John the Evangelist is addressed as “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” the Apostle with whom Jesus of Nazareth had a particularly close friendship – and the only Apostle who stood by Jesus at the Crucifixion, when all the other Apostles had fled; no fear of death or torture would keep John from being there for his friend. Saint Stephen is addressed as Christianity’s first martyr; Saint Nicholas, as the great confessor; Saint Benedict, as the founder of monasticism; Saint Mary Magdalene, as a woman whose prior life of fleshly sin was redeemed by the spiritual love of Jesus.
My dearest lady,
Well you know by your own life
How a sinful soul can be reconciled with its creator,
What counsel a soul in misery needs,
What medicine will restore the sick to health. (p. 201)
These prayers partake of the long-standing tradition of intercession – the idea that asking a saint to speak on one’s behalf to God can be an important step forward toward forgiveness, reconciliation, and reunion with God. At the same time, the deeply personal quality of these prayers might appeal to many Protestants – for whom, traditionally, the idea of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ holds great importance.
In terms of the intellectual history of the West, the Proslogion is probably Anselm’s most important work. Going back and forth between passages of prose and prayer, this short book of 26 chapters represents Anselm’s attempt “to find one single argument, needing no other proof than itself, to prove that God really exists” (p. 238).
The Proslogion, the title of which draws from the Latin proslogium (“discourse”), seems, in its efforts to establish an ontological proof of the existence of God, to draw upon Aristotle’s concept of the “unmoved mover” from the Metaphysics. And readers who appreciate the Zen Buddhist concept of the koan (a seeming paradox that resolves itself only after deep and sustained contemplation) might find it interesting to watch Anselm struggle with seeming contradictions within the Christian faith, as with his consideration of the idea that God can forgive the wicked: “[A]lthough one can see why you should deal out good to the good and bad to the bad, what is indeed to be wondered at is why you who are entirely righteous and want for nothing should give good gifts to your wicked and guilty sons” (p. 250).
With meditations and letters of Anselm, as well as a helpful appendix chronicling the development of the prayers and discussing their importance in ecclesiastical and intellectual history, this edition of the work of Anselm of Aosta is a striking and invigorating look into the faith journey of an exceptionally gifted philosopher and writer.
February 12, 2022
A worshipful collection and a feast for the soul. Writing in an astonishingly personable and devotional manner, Anselm invites his readers to marvel at the depths of God's mercy.
December 20, 2020
The Marian prayers were nice, I also liked the Proslogion as the discussion of God's attributes and the attempts to reconcile contradictions were interesting.
February 14, 2021
"O supreme and inaccessible light; O whole and blessed truth, how far You are from me who am so close to You! How distant You are from my sight while I am so present to Your sight! You are wholly present everywhere and I do not see You. In You I move and in You I have my being and I cannot come near to You. You are within me and around me and I do not have any experience of You."
May 1, 2024
Wonderful. Meditative and deep.
Also, some was horrendous.
Also, some was horrendous.
September 29, 2023
Glorious
May 10, 2023
Anselm wrote the Proslogion to convince the unbelieving "fool" of God's existence through reason. He believes in the unity of truth, that reason and faith are the same. Anselm challenges his reader to seek God by shutting out everything except that which aids in seeking Him. His argument begins with the concept of "that which nothing greater can be conceived" which even unbelievers understand. Faith for Anselm is a state of love for God and a desire to act as God wants. The proof aims to establish with certainty the existence of God and everything else that we believe the divine being to be, starting from logical principles that everyone acknowledges. To Anselm, "that which nothing greater can be conceived" exists both in the understanding and as a thing, because if it exists only in the understanding, it can be thought of as greater by also existing as a thing. Since it cannot be greater than itself, it must exist in reality. By starting from lower things and progressing to higher things, we can arrive at the concept of God, who is the highest being. Anselm's argument is based on reason and logic, seeking to prove the existence of God through his own merits.
August 17, 2009
I'm not sure how to process all the prayers to saints (deep devotion, but screams "idolatry" to my Protestant scruples), but a wonderful example of true theology, which should lead to prayer and meditation. Ironic (or is it?) that the theologian who gave us the doctrine of the substitutionay atonement should have prayed so fervently to Mary and John the Baptist? Thanks God that he uses confused people like us to figure out the truth over long periods of time! Should make us more humble about what we think we know so clearly ...
February 23, 2009
Glorious, not to mention awful.
June 11, 2020
fervent but tender. for the patiently serious
September 28, 2023
Le preghiere di Anselmo sono oggettivamente molto belle, ingiustamente trascurate per secoli a causa di una storia testuale che rendeva difficile isolare quali fossero quelle certamente attribuibili a lui. A seguito d'una prima edizione critica data alle stampe nel 1923, questo problema è stato risolto e noi oggi possiamo finalmente cogliere i frutti di un secolo di ricerca sul tema. Val la pena di leggerle; alcuni hanno scritto che è proprio nelle preghiere che si scopre l'Anselmo più vero e più intimo, e io credo di poter concordare.
Questa edizione ha il merito di riportare la traduzione delle preghiere a cura di Benedetta Ward: la consiglio molto e la ritengo anche migliore della traduzione italiana, che secondo me non riesce con altrettanta efficacia a replicare le rime interne e la curatissima ricerca stilistica che si trovano invece nell'originale. Peccato per l'assenza di testo originale a fronte (sarebbe stato utile, vista appunto la bellezza del testo originale), ma sicuramente questa scelta editoriale è funzionale a rendere più maneggevole il libretto, che si legge come un normale testo di spiritualità e che viene venduto per pochi euro. Consigliato.
Questa edizione ha il merito di riportare la traduzione delle preghiere a cura di Benedetta Ward: la consiglio molto e la ritengo anche migliore della traduzione italiana, che secondo me non riesce con altrettanta efficacia a replicare le rime interne e la curatissima ricerca stilistica che si trovano invece nell'originale. Peccato per l'assenza di testo originale a fronte (sarebbe stato utile, vista appunto la bellezza del testo originale), ma sicuramente questa scelta editoriale è funzionale a rendere più maneggevole il libretto, che si legge come un normale testo di spiritualità e che viene venduto per pochi euro. Consigliato.
February 24, 2020
Even though I was brought up Protestant, Anselm's writing is just ...pure. His heart is humble, his theology is bullet-proof and his writing-skill is impressive. I pick this book up at least twice a year.
June 27, 2020
Thanks very very much, Anselm.
September 7, 2021
A wonderful example of what can be created when heart and mind are fully alive...together! This is how a theologian should write theology and how a monk should think.
March 30, 2022
Thanks be to God for St. Anselm. The Monologion and Proslogion are so beautiful!
July 12, 2022
Very profound meditations by Anselm of Canterbury.
September 24, 2022
A thought-provoking exploration of personal faith.
September 3, 2023
Thank you Abba for this feast for the soul. Speechless at the riches of this religious and literary feat that sweeps its reader into prayer to God Most High and His saints.
December 2, 2016
My thoughts on St. Anselm's book are mostly negative, but I will admit these feelings are based on a first impression of reading the text. St. Anselm appears to be hiding a rather weak argument for the existence of God in a rather tortuous scholastic maze. The text is filled with an abundant supply of tautologies that for the vast majority of the time spent reading the text, St. Anselm is saying very little.
St. Anselm does not have the same understanding of the grace and of the mysteries given by God, which is fundamentally understood by St. Augustine throughout his Confessions. St. Anselm, would not make such a point, if he fully had vested belief in Christ’s words, “3 and said, “Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
It appears that St. Anselm is really driving home the fact in the early parts of the Proslogion that the existence of God, our exile, and our hunger from him all hinge on the importance of the Creation story. St. Anselm writes, “He lost the happiness for which he was made and found an unhappiness for which he was not made…Man then ate the bread-of-angels for which he now hungers; and now he eats the bread-of-sorrows…while, alas, remaining empty.”
St. Anselm asks, “Why did God take away?” St. Athanasius answers, “Mankind rejected God.”
In Chapter 3-7 of the Proslogion, one discovers St. Anselm’s argument for the existence of God after one wades through the tremendous amount of tautology to arrive at the argument. The basic argument is that “O Lord my God, You exist so truly that You cannot even be thought not to exist…For if any mind could think of something better than You, the creature would rise above the Creator and would sit in judgment over the Creator—something which is utterly absurd.”
Frankly, I find Blaise Pascale’s argument of “wager” more convincing. Anselm’s argument is already laid on the foundation that a deity does exist, and that ontologically speaking if one were to argue that something is greater than God, that something would be God—and there goes the strawman. Perhaps, I feel this way because I know St. Thomas Aquinas’ argument for the existence of God, which St. Anselm did not have the pleasure to read. Fundamentally, one cannot assert the existence of God without proving that God existing is self-evident based on the cosmological argument rather than asserting a mere metaphysical acknowledgment that is ontologically speaking that God already exists and that there can be nothing greater.
I do enjoy St. Anselm’s examination on the topic of God being both merciful and impassible more than his examination of the existence of God. I do believe his ontological argument works better when attempting to understand an infinitely omniscient and all powerful being. In chapter eight, St. Anselm really just poses the question, “How can he be both merciful and impassible?” It’s interesting that I find St. Anselm’s response very simple, yet, complex to ponder. St. Anselm answers this question by stating, “ You are [merciful] according to our experience but are not [merciful] according to your experience.”
St. Anselm does not have the same understanding of the grace and of the mysteries given by God, which is fundamentally understood by St. Augustine throughout his Confessions. St. Anselm, would not make such a point, if he fully had vested belief in Christ’s words, “3 and said, “Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
It appears that St. Anselm is really driving home the fact in the early parts of the Proslogion that the existence of God, our exile, and our hunger from him all hinge on the importance of the Creation story. St. Anselm writes, “He lost the happiness for which he was made and found an unhappiness for which he was not made…Man then ate the bread-of-angels for which he now hungers; and now he eats the bread-of-sorrows…while, alas, remaining empty.”
St. Anselm asks, “Why did God take away?” St. Athanasius answers, “Mankind rejected God.”
In Chapter 3-7 of the Proslogion, one discovers St. Anselm’s argument for the existence of God after one wades through the tremendous amount of tautology to arrive at the argument. The basic argument is that “O Lord my God, You exist so truly that You cannot even be thought not to exist…For if any mind could think of something better than You, the creature would rise above the Creator and would sit in judgment over the Creator—something which is utterly absurd.”
Frankly, I find Blaise Pascale’s argument of “wager” more convincing. Anselm’s argument is already laid on the foundation that a deity does exist, and that ontologically speaking if one were to argue that something is greater than God, that something would be God—and there goes the strawman. Perhaps, I feel this way because I know St. Thomas Aquinas’ argument for the existence of God, which St. Anselm did not have the pleasure to read. Fundamentally, one cannot assert the existence of God without proving that God existing is self-evident based on the cosmological argument rather than asserting a mere metaphysical acknowledgment that is ontologically speaking that God already exists and that there can be nothing greater.
I do enjoy St. Anselm’s examination on the topic of God being both merciful and impassible more than his examination of the existence of God. I do believe his ontological argument works better when attempting to understand an infinitely omniscient and all powerful being. In chapter eight, St. Anselm really just poses the question, “How can he be both merciful and impassible?” It’s interesting that I find St. Anselm’s response very simple, yet, complex to ponder. St. Anselm answers this question by stating, “ You are [merciful] according to our experience but are not [merciful] according to your experience.”
April 22, 2008
An important Saint in the Western Church, but certainly dated in outlook. Who today prays to St. Peter to keep the gate-key turned on open for my soul to pass through? And who today would ascribe a certain lethargy at times as sin, rather than simply occasional laziness or enjoyment of leisure? This is one serious fellow.
September 17, 2009
This book is a bit hard to review, because it is very dense philosophy, and the style is more akin to Plato than to modern Christian apologetics. However, the book was a very moving meditation on God's being and the universe, which I would recommend reading carefully.
Want to read
February 18, 2012--starting with the De Libertate Arbitrii and making my way through...
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