Anselm of Canterbury

Anselm of Canterbury (b. 1033–d. 1109) is the most enduringly influential philosopher-theologian of the Latin West between Augustine and the 13th century. Best known among philosophers for his “ontological” argument for the existence of God in the Proslogion and among theologians for his account of the Atonement in Cur Deus Homo, he is regarded as the quintessential “classical theist,” and his accounts of the divine nature and attributes, of freedom and the fall, and of human redemption continue to attract attention. This article provides an annotated list of Anselm’s complete works as well as selected English translations and secondary literature.

Ontogénesis del pensamiento especulativo anselmiano

De concordia, el último tratado escrito por Anselmo constituye un hito privilegiado en la ontogénesis de su pensamiento. Intentaré delinear en De concordia aquellos aspectos de su macroestructura que juzgo importantes y que pertenecen a ese proceso genético: a) la obra se inscribe —junto con Monologion y Cur deus homo— en la ontogénesis del pensamiento anselmiano en tanto pensamiento especulativo; b) este carácter especulativo está asociado íntimamente al lenguaje a través de la noción nihil; c) la articulación entre libertad y necesidad cuanto el desdoblamiento del centro de DC (en centro textual y centro objetivo), son subsidiarios del antedicho carácter especulativo.

Christ, the Power and Possibility of God in St. Anselm of Canterbury

In this article I examine the modal theism of St. Anselm of Canterbury, arguing that the person of the divine Son plays an important role in how Anselm thinks about God’s power and possibilities. Beginning with his first major theological work, the Monologion, I show how Anselm’s characterizes God’s knowledge of creation, not in the traditional, Augustinian terms of an intellectual divine “idea,” but in the comparatively more linguistic terms of a divine “locutio” or “utterance.” I go on to argue that this sets Anselm up for a somewhat unique modal theology, one in which God is best understood as acting and creating, not against the backdrop of an already defined and existing domain of possibilities, but in a way that makes him the inventor and creator of his own possibilities. In the second part of the article, I turn to Anselm’s influential work of Christology, Cur Deus Homo, to examine how his “theistic actualism” is paralleled in select aspects of his account of the divine Son’s Incarnation in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

‘The love that pierces the heart’: a critical analysis of the concept of sanctification in the writings of St Anselm of Canterbury

Contemporary analyses of Anselm's objective description of Christ's atonement have often resulted in a trend of interpretation that tends to ignore the relevance of this model to a development and understanding of a western doctrine of Christian sanctification. Through the examination of some overlooked insights offered inCur Deus homoand their integration with other spiritual writings in Anselm's corpus, the present article attempts to redirect current scholarship towards a more holistic engagement with Anselm's doctrine of atonement, out of which an original doctrine of Christian perfection can be outlined.

Anselmian apocatastasis: the fitting necessity of universal salvation in St Anselm'sCur Deus Homo

This article makes a case for universal salvation based on the soteriology of Anselm of Canterbury'sCur Deus Homo. It argues that without an affirmation of universal salvation, Anselm's argument fails on the grounds of its own soteriological logic, which unites the fitting and the necessary for God, assumes the primary importance of divine aseity for understanding salvation history, and affirms the ontological unity of the human race as the object of God's redemptive love. Also detailed is the development of the relationship between mercy and justice in Anselm's thought from theProslogiontoCur Deus Homo, and it is shown how Anselm's developed soteriology in the latter challenges major features of the Augustinianism he inherited. The article concludes that a robust theology of divine aseity like Anselm's will entail that creation be understood as a theatre for the manifestation of God's eternal love for his creatures.

Isabelle Marchesin, L’arbre et la colonne. La porte de bronze d’Hildesheim, mit einem Vorwort von Herbert L. Kessler Paris: Éditions A. et J. Picard, 2017, 232 S., 3 s/w und 195 farb. Abb.

Ein monumentales Werk mittelalterlicher Kunst hat hier eine ebenfalls monumentale Interpretation/Wiedergabe gefunden: auf <?page nr="375"?>großformatigem Glanzpapier wechselt der Text mit einer fast erdrückenden Fülle von manchmal lebensgroßen, sich oft, ihrer mehrfachen Betrachtung in der Argumentation zuliebe, wiederholenden Abbildungen. Mit seinem Umfang und Gewicht hätte das Buch auf dem Lesepult einer mittelalterlichen Bibliothek einen geeigneten Platz gefunden – einen Platz, den man ihm aber auch auf Grund seiner geistigen Verwandtschaft mit der geistlichen Literatur des Mittelalters gern zuerkennen möchte. Die Verfasserin bietet in der Tat eine Auslegung der Hildesheimer Bronzetüren, die es mit der Schriftauslegung des Mittelalters durchaus aufnehmen kann, bzw. die eine Art Schriftauslegung zweiten Grades, über die Vermittlung der Bilder, darstellt. Des zweiten und nicht des dritten Grades, wenn man annimmt, dass die bildlichen Darstellungen des Mittelalters nicht oder nicht notwendigerweise Transpositionen exegetischer Texte sind, sondern (auch) originelle Schöpfungen (sein können), die ihrerseits die schriftliche Exegese beeinflusst haben. Wie Herbert Kessler in seinem einfühlenden Vorwort bemerkt und mit einem Zitat aus Anselms von Canterbury Cur Deus homo belegt, gehört zu den zahlreichen Verdiensten dieser Arbeit ,,its overturning of the priority usually accorded texts over pictures and its suggestion that the typological structure of so much medieval art may, in fact, be based on images not on words.“1