Christian Cyclopedia

(ca. 1033/34–1109). Father of medieval scholasticism.* B. Aosta, It.; succeeded Lanfranc* as prior of the Benedictine Abbey of Bec,* N Fr., 1063; abbot there 1078; abp. Canterbury, Eng., 1093. Studied Augustine extensively and lived himself into his spirit. Had many difficulties with the king of Eng. over rights and privilege. Was humble, kind of heart, and charitable. Works include Cur deus homo and Monologium; in the latter he developed an ontological argument for the existence of God. See also Barth, Karl; Christian Faith and the Intellectual, 3; Credo ut intelligam; God, Arguments for the Existence of.

A. C. Welch, Anselm and His Work (Edinburgh, 1901); M. Grabmann, Die Geschichte der scholastischen Methode, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1956); F. R. Hasse, Anselm von Canterbury, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1843–52); R. W. Southern, Saint Anselm and His Biographer (Cambridge, Eng., 1963); Opera omnia, ed. F. S. Schmitt (Edinburgh, 1946–61); G. H. Williams, Anselm: Communion and Atonement (St. Louis, 1960); J. Hopkins, A Companion to the Study of St. Anselm (Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1972).