Ill - Historical Study of Anselm's Proslogion Argument, Devotion and Rhetoric, A.Jul.2020

A Historical Study of Anselm’s Proslogion
Anselm Studies and Texts
Managing Editor
Giles E.M. Gasper (University of Durham)
Editorial Board
Marcia Colish (Yale University)

Jay Diehl (Long Island University)
Bernd Goebel (University of Fulda)
Ian Logan (University of Oxford)
Lauren Mancia (Brooklyn College, CUNY)
Eileen Sweeney (Boston College)
volume 2
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/as

A Historical Study
of Anselm’s Proslogion
Argument, Devotion and Rhetoric
By
Toivo J. Holopainen
LEIDEN | BOSTON
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To Taina
∵
Contents
Preface ix
1 Introduction 1
Part 1
The Single Argument
2 The General Idea of the Argument 11

2.1 Focusing on the unum argumentum 11
2.2 Anselm’s reductio 13
2.3 The Monologion—a First Reading 20
2.4 The Preface and Responsio 10 27
3 A Specific Identification of the Argument 37

3.1 Candidates for the Argument 37
3.2 A Contingent Application 42
3.3 That Than Which a Greater Cannot Be Thought and God 51
3.4 The Argument That Proves Itself 58
4 The Argument and Dialectic 65

4.1 The Importance of Dialectic 65
4.2 The Boethian Theory of Argument 74
4.3 Some Contemporary Testimonies 79
4.4 A Boethian Reconstruction of Anselm’s Argument 82
4.5 The Puzzle of the Proslogion 88
Part 2
The Historical Context
5 Anselm and Lanfranc—the Early Years 93

5.1 Misperceptions in the Scholarship 93
5.2 Lanfranc—Anselm’s Teacher? 96
5.3 The Authorship of De corpore 102
viii Contents
6 Reappraisal of De corpore 110

6.1 A Rhetorical Treatise on the Eucharist 110
6.2 The Background and Structure of De corpore 113
6.3 Reply to Berengar’s Logical Argument 118
6.4 Reply to Berengar’s Account of the Eucharist 125
6.5 The Rhetorical Motivation for Lanfranc’s Theory 131
7 Anselm and Lanfranc’s Heritage 140

7.1 The Faith and Reason Issue 140
7.2 De corpore on Faith and Reason 143
7.3 The Monologion on Faith and Reason 147
7.4 Anselm, Lanfranc, and the Publishing of the Monologion 154
7.5 Call for a Proslogion 161
Part 3
The Exercise in the Proslogion
8 The Devotional Exercise 167

8.1 Argument, Devotion, and Rhetoric 167
8.2 Faith, Understanding, and Vision 171
8.3 Some Augustinian Background 178
8.4 On Anselm’s Prayers 183
8.5 The Attempt at Contemplating God in the Proslogion 187
9 The Exercise Continued 197

9.1 The Evolution of the Proslogion 197
9.2 Effects of the Additions 206
9.3 Believers, Unbelievers, and Rational Grounds 212
9.4 The Purpose of the Proslogion 220
Bibliography 225
Index 232
Preface
The idea of writing this book emerged before the turn of the millennium. Its
prehistory goes back to the 1980s, when I wrote a Master’s thesis ‘The Single
Argument in Anselm’s Proslogion’ (in Finnish). The thesis later evolved into
a chapter in my Dialectic and Theology in the Eleventh Century (University of
Helsinki, 1995; Brill, 1996). I was quite happy with the chapter, but then I at-
tended my first Anselm conference in Rome in 1998. I realized that it is ex-
tremely difficult to persuade the scholarly community of any new ideas of the
Proslogion, as there is so little common ground that one can take for granted.
Because I thought I had some good points, I thought I should nevertheless try.
My analysis of the single argument has remained essentially the same
throughout the project, but I have had difficulty in achieving a coherent idea
of some other issues central for understanding the Proslogion. I have discussed
the same topics in a number of previous publications, as indicated in the foot-
notes of this study. At this point I would like to mention the article ‘Anselm’s
Argumentum and the Early Medieval Theory of Argument’, Vivarium 45 (2007),
1–29, the content of which I extensively utilize in Chapters 2–4.
I am deeply grateful for the encouragement that I have received from a num-
ber of people over the years. I would like to mention especially Simo Knuuttila,
Helmut Kohlenberger, Coloman Viola, Marilyn Adams, Bernd Goebel, and an
anonymous reader in 2017.
T. J. H.
Maununneva, Helsinki, March 2020
Chapter 1
Introduction
The Proslogion (original version c. 1077–78, final version c. 1083–85) by Anselm

of Canterbury (1033/4–1109) is one of the most famous works in the history
of Christian thought, but it is also one of the most controversial. The treatise
has received a remarkable amount of scholarly attention in recent decades. A
major part of the secondary literature consists of philosophical analyses of the
inference or inferences on God’s existence that Anselm offers within the trea-
tise, or that some scholars think he might or should have offered.1 However,
there are also other issues related to the Proslogion that are controversial, and
this book’s concern is the interpretation of the treatise in general.
In the 1960s, the classic collection of essays, The Many-Faced Argument
(1967), charted different ways in which the nature of Anselm’s thought in the
Proslogion could be understood, distinguishing ‘rationalistic’, ‘believing’, and
‘mystical’ interpretations of Anselm.2 A similar collection could be made of
contributions that have been published since that time. Even though the ra-
tional interpretation of Anselm continues to be the mainstream view,3 there
are fideistic and mystical emphases or overtones in many current discussions
1 See especially the following recent studies: Ian Logan, Reading Anselm’s Proslogion:
The History of Anselm’s Argument and its Significance Today (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009);
A. D. Smith, Anselm’s Other Argument (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014);
Richard Campbell, Rethinking Anselm’s Arguments: A Vindication of his Proof of the Existence
of God (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2018). Campbell’s book appeared too late to be taken into ac-
count in this study. The amount and nature of the secondary literature on the Proslogion
makes providing useful references difficult. I try to mention the more important recent stud-
ies in English in the course of the book, but I readily admit there are lacunae in my reading.
2 John Hick and Arthur C. McGill (eds.), The Many-Faced Argument: Recent Studies on the
Ontological Argument for the Existence of God (New York: Macmillan, 1967). See especially
McGill’s article ‘Recent Discussions of Anselm’s Argument’, 33–110, in particular, 50–69. For
the mainstream (philosophical and rational) interpretation, see also M. J. Charlesworth,
St. Anselm’s Proslogion with a Reply on Behalf of the Fool by Gaunilo and the Author’s Reply to
Gaunilo (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965) and Jasper Hopkins, A Companion to the Study of St.
Anselm (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1972). For the fideistic interpretation,
see also Karl Barth, Anselm: Fides Quaerens Intellectum, trans. Ian W. Robertson (London:
SCM Press, 1960) (German original 1st ed. 1931, 2nd ed. 1958).
3 For example, the majority of articles in Brian Davies and Brian Leftow (eds.), The Cambridge
Companion to Anselm (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), and Sandra Visser and
Thomas Williams, Anselm (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004426665_002

2 Chapter 1
of the Proslogion.4 Moreover, as in the 1960s, there is no general consensus

about how Anselm’s central arguments in the Proslogion should be identified
and how their structure should be analysed. It can be difficult even for an in-
formed reader to recognize what the best scholarly analyses of these issues are,
as their merits have not been perceived widely enough. Without any doubt, the
interpretation of the Proslogion will remain a controversial matter in the years
to come as well, but it is nevertheless worthwhile to try to clarify some basic
issues once more and to discuss some perspectives that have not yet received
sufficient attention.
The reading of the Proslogion delineated in this book is based on many
years of reflection on Anselm’s work and the interpretational difficulties re-
lated to it. It is also based on good luck: when reading other early medieval
texts, I have come across things that prove to be relevant for the interpretation
of the Proslogion. The Eucharistic treatise De corpore et sanguine Domini (On
the Body and Blood of the Lord) attributed to Lanfranc proves to be vital for
understanding the circumstances in which Anselm composed and published
the Proslogion. Familiarity with it is also of great help for understanding some
features of the Proslogion as a text. Likewise, some ideas and discussions with-
in the early medieval art of dialectic can be used to clarify Anselm’s remarks
about the central arguments in the Proslogion.
As far as my intentions are concerned, this study is a historical introduc-
tion to the Proslogion. The idea is to explain some things that the reader needs
to be familiar with in order to be able to read and understand the Proslogion
in a historically adequate way. Even though clarifying philosophical and theo-
logical issues related to the Proslogion has been the incentive for the effort,
I seek to achieve this effect by offering considerations of a historical nature.
Engaging with the systematic issues themselves, philosophical or theological,
is a different task, and it falls outside the scope of this study. Consequently,
I will not be addressing the question of the soundness of Anselm’s arguments,
or what follows from that. The book’s intended audience is academics and stu-
dents who have an interest in the Proslogion, whether they work in philoso-
phy, religion, literature, or history. To make the study accessible to readers with
different backgrounds, I have attempted to write it in a way that an educated
general reader might understand.
4 The recent fideistic readings of Anselm include Daniel Deme, The Christology of Anselm of
Canterbury (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003) and David S. Hogg, Anselm of Canterbury: The Beauty
of Theology (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004). There are strong mystical emphases in Gregory
Schufreider, Confessions of a Rational Mystic: Anselm’s Early Writings (West Lafayette, IN:
Purdue University Press, 1994) and Eileen C. Sweeney, Anselm of Canterbury and the Desire
for the Word (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2012).
Introduction 3
The reading of the Proslogion proposed in this study agrees with the conven-
tional reading in holding that Anselm meant to introduce a rational argument
for God’s existence. At the same time, the study takes seriously the intuition of
those who are convinced that Anselm must have had a particular reason for
presenting his inference within the framework of a devotional exercise and
works out a historical explanation for this fact. What results is a complex story,
but there is nothing intrinsically difficult within that story: all its elements are
easy to understand even by a secular mind. I promise that the story will also be
an intriguing one. Contrary to what is sometimes suggested, there is material
for a Hollywood film in Anselm’s life, and some of the material is relevant for
understanding the Proslogion.
By way of an introduction, I offer two brief discussions that start from some
common ideas about the Proslogion and then work towards a different analysis.
The first discussion concerns the identification of the entity that can be called
‘Anselm’s argument’, and the second deals with the idea that the Proslogion
could be characterized as an apologetic work.5
It is generally conceived that there is something in Proslogion 2 or
Proslogion 2–3 that can be called ‘Anselm’s argument’. The most common view
of it goes something like this: Anselm’s argument is an argument for God’s ex-
istence that Anselm presents in Proslogion 2. This argument is a version of the
ontological argument for God’s existence. It starts from the concept of God, de-
fined as ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’, makes use of a reductio
ad absurdum, and concludes with the affirmation that God exists.
A reading of Proslogion 2–3 shows that this way of putting the matter is
problematic. To begin with, the train of reasoning in Proslogion 2 does not start
from having the concept of God but from the uttering of the expression ‘that
than which a greater cannot be thought’. Anselm’s inference moves from an
expression being uttered and heard to a thing existing in the understanding
and in reality, there being no equivalent to the notion ‘concept’ in Proslogion 2.
Moreover, the inference in Proslogion 2 does not end with the affirmation that
God exists. Instead, it ends with the affirmation that that than which a greater
cannot be thought exists, both in the understanding and in reality. Proslogion 3
continues from where Proslogion 2 ended and argues that that than which a
greater cannot be thought exists so truly that it cannot even be thought not
to exist. It is only in the middle of Proslogion 3 that there comes a conclusion
about God, and the conclusion is not about the fact of his existence but about
the manner of his existence: he exists so truly that he cannot be thought not
5 As the relevant aspects of the Proslogion will be treated more fully later in the study, only a
light documentation is provided in these introductory discussions.
4 Chapter 1
to exist. Hence, Proslogion 2 and the early part of Proslogion 3 constitute one
continuous train of reasoning to establish a conclusion about the manner of
God’s existence.6
A consideration of the relation between Proslogion 2 and Proslogion 3 shows
that one should not be too quick to identify Proslogion 2 as Anselm’s argument,
if one wants to be faithful to how Anselm looked at his own work. Nevertheless,
amending the situation by extending ‘the argument’ to Proslogion 3 is not
enough. There is a particular reason why the identification of ‘Anselm’s argu-
ment’ is perceived to be vital for a historically grounded understanding of the
Proslogion: Anselm gives us to understand in the preface that he wrote the work
to introduce the ‘single argument’ (unum argumentum) that he had discov-
ered, and the preface makes clear that it is a central feature in the treatise. In
popular discussions of the Proslogion, it is often assumed that Anselm’s unum
argumentum is an inference on God’s existence. It is true enough that God’s
existence is one of those things that the single argument should establish, but
its scope is much larger. The single argument should prove not only God’s exis-
tence but also ‘that he is the supreme good needing no other yet needed by all
for their existence and well-being, and whatever we believe about the divine
substance.’7 That is to say, the scope of the single argument is to prove both
God’s existence and everything that the Christians believe about the divine es-
sence. It follows that no inference about God’s existence in Proslogion 2–3 can
be legitimately identified as Anselm’s single argument.
In the more specialized literature of the recent decades, it has been widely
perceived that the single argument should establish both God’s existence and
that which is believed about God’s essence. There is also some consensus that
Anselm derives these notions from the characterization of God as ‘that than
which a greater cannot be thought’.8 However, the remarks about the single
argument are typically either brief and vague or brief and tentative, the focus
continually being on the inference(s) on God’s existence.
Elucidating the single argument is one of the main tasks that a historical
introduction to the Proslogion must undertake. In the present context, some
brief remarks will have to suffice. Anselm’s single argument is not at all a piece
of argumentation or a piece of text that was actually written down somewhere
in the Proslogion. Instead, the single argument is a means of argumentation
6 See Proslogion 2–3, S I, 101.3–104.4. The references to Anselm’s works are to S. Anselmi can-
tuariensis archiepiscopi opera omnia, vols. I–VI, ed. Franciscus Salesius Schmitt (Edinburgh:
Nelson, 1946–1961). I give volume, pages, and lines, e.g., ‘S I, 101.3’ means ‘ed. Schmitt, vol. I,
page 101, line 3’ (in some cases, only volume and pages).
7 Proslogion, preface, S I, 93.6–10. All translations are my own, unless otherwise noted.
8 See, for example, Hick and McGill (eds.), The Many-Faced Argument, 3.
Introduction 5
that one can use to construct pieces of argumentation. Basically, the single
argument is the expression or notion ‘that than which a greater cannot be
thought’. A clear distinction between the single argument and the concrete
pieces of argumentation based on it is a precondition for any proper under-
standing of the Proslogion. Anselm’s argument in Proslogion 2 is one of those
pieces of argumentation.
Those who hold that the Proslogion contains a rational argument for God’s
existence usually also hold that the Proslogion has an apologetic aim, even
though the issue is seldom explicitly treated. There are at least two different
senses in which the Proslogion could be taken to be a work of Christian apolo-
getics. First, it could be understood as a work that directly addresses unbeliev-
ers and, appealing to their reason, tries to convince them of God’s existence
and some other claims about God. In current literature, this view often appears
as the assumption that Anselm wrote the Proslogion in order to prove God’s
existence to the fool, the atheist of the psalms (Psalm 14:1). Alternatively, it
can be suggested that the Proslogion is an apologetic work in the sense that it
supplies Christian believers with rational arguments in order that they can use
them when they encounter unbelievers.
It is rather clear that Anselm did not expect atheists to read the Proslogion.
The work is a devotional exercise that Anselm composed for Christian believ-
ers. When he replied to the criticism that Gaunilo had put forward ‘on behalf
of the fool’, Anselm directed the reply to Gaunilo as a ‘Catholic’, that is, an or-
thodox Christian, and not to the fool. The suggestion that Anselm composed
the Proslogion to supply Christian believers with rational arguments that they
can use for apologetic purposes stands up better. The preface to the Proslogion
encourages us to believe that Anselm composed the treatise in order to in-
troduce his single argument, and even though Anselm replies to Gaunilo as a
Christian, the content of the reply indicates that he thought the single argu-
ment could be used for proving God’s existence to the fool. It can be said that
the Proslogion in its final and complete form has an apologetic aspect.
However, the Proslogion in its original form gives a different impression.
At that stage, it was a devotional exercise without any commentary material
other than the title Faith Seeking Understanding. Not only are the appendices
at the end of the treatise a later addition but so is the preface, and without the
preface, the reader does not know to look for Anselm’s single argument. Even
though there is an emphasis on the rational arguments in the final form of the
Proslogion, the absence of that emphasis in the original Proslogion means that
the treatise cannot be aptly characterized as a work of Christian apologetics.
What should we make of the relation between the original form of the
Proslogion and the final and complete form of it? This issue has seldom been
6 Chapter 1
considered in the literature on the Proslogion, even though it is well known

that there are these two different versions of the treatise. It often happens that
scholars, intentionally or not, give precedence to one of the versions. A histori-
cal introduction to the Proslogion must take both versions equally seriously. It
may not be immediately clear how this can be managed though. If Anselm first
suggests a certain kind of idea and then suggests a different idea, how can we
know what he really means?
The solution, I maintain, can be found by examining the issue from a rhe-
torical perspective: the two versions of the Proslogion each aim at engendering
a certain effect in the audience. Anselm first deliberately creates a certain im-
pression by publishing a devotional exercise, and he then deliberately modifies
that impression by adding commentary to his original text. Approaching the
Proslogion from the viewpoint of rhetoric is one of the key ideas in this study.
Anselm received training in the art of rhetoric and he was capable of reflecting
on how texts and writing can be used to produce effects in the audience.
The suggestion just made about the way we should approach the two ver-
sions of the Proslogion has an important consequence. Anselm assuredly
would not have expected that later audiences would first read the original ver-
sion of the Proslogion and then the final version after some interval. As a result,
attention is drawn to the first audience of the work, that is, the monastic and
clerical audience in Normandy and its surroundings in the late 1070s and early
1080s. My analysis of the Proslogion will build on the notion that the treatise
can be properly understood only when it is considered in the context in which
it was composed and published. This is not how scholars usually approach the
treatise. On the contrary, they often read the Proslogion as if it had no historical
context at all or as if it had no other context than Anselm’s own writings. At the
same time, it is common knowledge that Anselm composed the Proslogion in
a strained situation brought about by the rational method of his first treatise,
the Monologion, which he had just completed. Anselm’s first treatise received
a less than welcoming reception from Lanfranc, who was his predecessor as
prior of the monastery at Bec and one of the most important ecclesiastics
in the Norman realm. In general discussions of Anselm’s thought, it is often
suggested that this context is relevant for understanding the Proslogion, but
remarks about the issue are vague. In the background looms the controversy
between Lanfranc and Berengar about the interpretation of the Eucharistic
doctrine. Pursuing these issues will be a complicated task, but it proves to be
fruitful.
The understanding of the Proslogion that is developed in this study main-
tains that the treatise is apologetic after all, though not in the customary
sense. I argue that the Proslogion should be seen as Anselm’s subtle attempt
Introduction 7
at justifying the kind of rational approach that he used in the Monologion,

and that he justifies it before an audience that consists of Christian believers.
The devotional exercise in the Proslogion makes the readers deeply involved
in the rational analysis of faith before they start to suspect anything, but in
addition, it enhances the idea that understanding (intellectus) is something
that a Christian should strive for in the present life. The Proslogion in its com-
plete form draws attention to the rational aspect of the devotional exercise
and insinuates that the rational method should be seen as a means of acquir-
ing understanding. In the preface to the Proslogion, Anselm also treats the
Monologion and the Proslogion as a pair, thus indicating that the Monologion
can also be read as an expression of faith seeking understanding.
The study consists of three parts. Parts 1 and 2 are largely independent of
each other, whereas Part 3 depends on both the preceding parts.
Part 1 seeks to elucidate the argumentative structure of the Proslogion from
a specific perspective. There are various kinds of argumentation and various
kinds of argumentative structures in the treatise. Much of the argumentation
in the Proslogion is about God, but the devotional passages treat some other
important topics as well. In Part 1, the argumentation in the devotional pas-
sages is largely left aside—some main points of the devotional exercise are
considered in Part 3—and some aspects of Anselm’s argumentation about
God receive only a summary treatment. The discussion in Part 1 is focused
on Anselm’s single argument, which is at the centre of the argumentation
about God in the Proslogion. Chapter 2 explains the general argumentative
idea related to the single argument: how it is possible, in Anselm’s opinion,
to prove everything that the Christians believe about the divine essence in a
simple manner. Nevertheless, identifying the general idea related to the single
argument is not the same as identifying the single argument. It is the task of
Chapter 3 to pin down the entity that Anselm refers to with the expression ‘sin-
gle argument’. The chapter also considers the argumentation in the Proslogion
from the standpoint that it is a contingent application of the single argument.
Chapter 4 turns to the theory of argument within the early medieval art of dia-
lectic and clarifies Anselm’s remarks about the single argument in this context.
The discussion ends with what I call ‘the puzzle of the Proslogion’: if Anselm’s
aim in the Proslogion was that of introducing the single argument, why did he
do it in such an opaque way?
Part 2 delineates the main features of the historical circumstances in which
Anselm composed and published the Proslogion. The immediate context of
its composition was the strained situation brought about by the Monologion,
but the nature of that situation can only be appreciated when it is related to
a more extensive background. My discussion of the historical context of the
8 Chapter 1
Proslogion is focused on a re-evaluation of De corpore et sanguine Domini at-

tributed to Lanfranc. I conduct a lengthy analysis to show that De corpore is
basically rhetorical in nature and that it is rhetorical to such an extent that
it is doubtful whether it can be seen as a serious theological contribution at
all. This result makes it necessary to think again about Anselm’s relation to
Lanfranc at the time when De corpore was composed (early 1060s) and the role
of these two thinkers in the composition of De corpore. I argue that Anselm
was already a mature scholar when he first came into contact with Lanfranc
and that he played a major role in the composition of De corpore. For reasons
of presentation, I first discuss Anselm’s relation to Lanfranc during their com-
mon years at Bec (Chapter 5) and present the re-evaluation of De corpore only
after that (Chapter 6). However, the argument in Chapter 6 does not depend on
the argument of Chapter 5; those who wish to do so may read Chapter 6 first.
Given the rhetorical nature of De corpore, we need to be careful when figuring
out what actually was Lanfranc’s stance in relation to the Monologion. A re-
consideration of the faith and reason issue from De corpore until the situation
after the completion of the Monologion (Chapter 7) suggests that Lanfranc and
Anselm remained loyal to each other, but it also suggests that there was need
for a subtle attempt to affect the audience’s ideas about method in theology.
Part 3 seeks to establish that the Proslogion should be seen as a subtle at-
tempt of the kind just mentioned and that this explains why Anselm intro-
duced the single argument in the way he did. The devotional exercise in the
main body of the Proslogion can be read as a carefully crafted rhetorical at-
tempt to bring about certain effects in those who engage in the exercise. What
is more, the additions that Anselm made in the Proslogion can be approached
from a similar perspective. By adding the preface, the chapter headings, and
the appendices, Anselm sought to deepen and modify the effects that the de-
votional exercise, as such, would have. Chapter 8 elucidates the devotional
exercise in the main body of the Proslogion by relating it to Anselm’s ideas
about human destiny and by analysing it as an attempt at contemplating God.
Chapter 9 discusses the process through which the Proslogion emerged and
explains how the treatise serves to validate the rational approach that Anselm
introduced in the Monologion.
Part 1
The Single Argument
∵
Chapter 2
The General Idea of the Argument
2.1 Focusing on the unum argumentum
In the preface to the Proslogion, Anselm gives us to understand that he com-

posed the treatise in order to introduce a single argument (unum argumen-
tum) that he had discovered. Even though this study maintains that this is
not the entire and ultimate reason for the composition and publication of the
Proslogion, the preface nevertheless makes it clear that Anselm found it impor-
tant that the readers of the Proslogion focus on the single argument when they
read the treatise. To make the readers curious about and alert to the argument,
Anselm offers a lively description of his quest for it. Anselm explains how the
idea of looking for a single argument came to his mind. He had completed his
first major treatise, the Monologion, and reflecting upon it, he made the obser-
vation that it was composed of an interconnected chain of many arguments. It
then occurred to him to ask whether a single argument could be discovered by
means of which it would be possible to prove a majority of the claims that were
established in the first treatise. Anselm offers a concise description of what
the single argument should prove and how it should prove it. It should prove
‘that God truly exists, that he is the supreme good needing no other yet needed
by all for their existence and well-being, and whatever we believe about the
divine substance’, and it should be capable of proving all this ‘by itself’ and so
that it ‘would need no other [argument] for proving itself than itself alone’.
Anselm then describes his difficult quest for an argument that would meet
the description. He exerted a lot of energy in finding it, but after a series of
frustrated efforts, he came to the conclusion that the project was doomed to
be unsuccessful and he decided to give it up. When Anselm was no longer in-
tent on finding the argument, the argument forced itself upon him in spite of
his resistance. In the end, Anselm embraced the argument with great joy. To
share the argument and the joy with others, he composed the little work which
comes in the pages that follow the preface.1
The preface to the Proslogion is designed to make the readers curious about
Anselm’s single argument—unless it happens they think they already know
what the argument is. Unfortunately, this is the case with most modern read-
ers: they already have strong ideas about the Proslogion and about Anselm’s
1 Proslogion, preface, S I, 93.2–94.2. See also 2.4.

12 Chapter 2
argument before they read any of Anselm’s text. There is the common mis-
understanding that the inference about God’s existence in Proslogion 2 (or
Proslogion 2–3) is Anselm’s single argument. Actually, there is a double mis-
understanding here. First, there is a misunderstanding about the burden and
scope of Anselm’s argument, a false idea about what the single argument does
establish or ought to establish. Second, there is a misunderstanding about the
kind of entity that Anselm’s argument is: it is assumed that Anselm’s argumen-
tum is an argument in the usual contemporary sense of the word ‘argument’.
That is to say, it is assumed that Anselm’s argumentum is an inference which
consists of a set of premises and a conclusion (or some conclusions) and some
inferential steps between them. The double misunderstanding strongly affects
the way in which the Proslogion is read nowadays. Even when it is recognized
as a misunderstanding, it is not easy to free oneself from it because it is difficult
to find a more convincing alternative perspective.
As already explained in the introduction, there is one obvious reason
why any inference about God’s existence in Proslogion 2–3 cannot be iden-
tified as Anselm’s argumentum. Anselm makes it clear that the burden and
scope of his argumentum is to establish both God’s existence and every-
thing that the Christians believe about the divine essence. The inference in
Proslogion 2–3 deals with God’s existence alone and hence fails to fulfil this
criterion. Obviously, one should look beyond chapters 2–3 of the Proslogion
(actually, beyond chapters 2–4 because chapter 4 is also part of the treatment
on God’s existence) to perceive Anselm’s argument. However, this is more eas-
ily said than done—especially if one assumes that Anselm’s argumentum is an
‘argument’ in the usual sense of the word. The actual text of the Proslogion con-
sists of twenty-six chapters. Even if we choose to ignore chapters 1 and 24–26
as an ‘opening invocation’ and ‘closing invocation’, respectively, there are still
nineteen chapters to consider: chapters 5–23. It is easy to spot pieces of ‘philo-
sophical’ argumentation within these nineteen chapters, but they are embed-
ded in a devotional exercise and it is not clear at first glance which particular
features of the text are part of the actual argument and which are due to the
specific application.2 Moreover, nowhere in the actual text of the Proslogion is
there a word about ‘the single argument’! Usually, the best way to get a good
grip on ‘the argument’3 in a work is to take the work, read it carefully, scrutinize
the central passages in it, and do some thinking. In the case of the Proslogion,
this method unhappily fails. On the basis of reading the Proslogion proper, that
2 There is a similar problem in Proslogion 2–4 as well but one can more easily overlook the
problem there.
3 The reader should note that the word ‘argument’ has different connotations here.
The General Idea of the Argument 13
is, on the basis of reading the twenty-six chapters of the Proslogion, it is very
difficult indeed to get a proper grasp of the unum argumentum in it.
Anselm did not only leave us the twenty-six chapters but also some addi-
tional material. A few years after the publication of the work, he provided the
Proslogion with a preface. There are also the well-known appendices at the end
of the work. It appears that someone, traditionally identified as Gaunilo, a monk
of Marmoutier, wrote a short piece criticizing Anselm’s argument for God’s ex-
istence. Anselm composed a rejoinder to this criticism and ordered that the
criticism together with the rejoinder should be appended to the manuscripts
of the work. Anselm’s rejoinder has the title Quid ad haec respondeat editor ip-
sius libelli (What the Author of That Treatise Replies to These Objections); I refer
to this rejoinder as ‘the Responsio’.4 Both the preface and the Responsio contain
some pieces of information which are highly valuable from the point of view of
understanding the argumentative structure in the Proslogion. There are some
other important sources of information as well. Anselm starts the preface to
the Proslogion by referring to his first treatise, the Monologion, and the chain
of many arguments in it. It is against the background of the Monologion that
the single argument is to be seen. It is also important to note that the word
argumentum was a technical term in early medieval logic or dialectic.
It is the burden of this first part of the study to provide an accurate ac-
count of Anselm’s argumentum. This chapter seeks to convey the general ar-
gumentative idea on which Anselm’s single argument is based.5 Chapter 3
continues from there and addresses the question of what exactly the entity
that Anselm refers to with the expression ‘single argument’ is. In Chapter 4,
some ideas within the early medieval theory of argument are used to elucidate
Anselm’s remarks about the argument. To begin with, attention is drawn to a
specific pattern of argumentation which Anselm uses in several passages in
the Proslogion.
2.2 Anselm’s reductio
In Proslogion 2, Anselm presents a piece of argumentation which is commonly

known as the earliest formulation of the ontological argument for God’s ex-
istence. Even though it would be a mistake to identify this piece of text as
the unum argumentum, Proslogion 2 can well serve as a starting point for the
4 See also 9.1.

5 The general argumentative idea that I describe has been widely recognized in recent scholar-
ship. Those well versed in Proslogion studies can take this chapter as a necessary prologue.
14 Chapter 2
discussion about the argumentum and the general argumentative idea relat-
ed to it. First, Anselm introduces here the idea that God is ‘that than which a
greater cannot be thought’.6 Second, he provides an argument in two stages
to demonstrate that such a being exists in reality.7 Third, within the said argu-
ment, he introduces a specific pattern of argumentation which recurs in the
Proslogion: a reductio ad absurdum which gets its force from the significance of
the expression ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’.
In the beginning of Proslogion 2, Anselm starts his argumentation about
God in three carefully thought-out short sentences:
Therefore, Lord, you who give understanding to faith, grant me that I

may understand, to the extent you know advantageous, that you exist as
we believe, and that you are what we believe. Now we believe you to be
something than which nothing greater can be thought. Or is there, then,
no such nature, since the fool has said in his heart: there is no God?8
The first sentence is closely connected to the discussion at the end of

Proslogion 1, in which Anselm presents some remarks on the relation between
faith (or believing) and understanding. In the present context, it suffices to
note that Anselm (or the person who prays) wants to understand some things
he believes. Two things regarding which understanding is requested are men-
tioned: that God ‘exist[s] as we believe’ and that God ‘[is] what we believe’. We
can understand the first request as referring to Anselm’s inference about God’s
existence in Proslogion 2–4 and the second request as referring to Anselm’s
treatment of issues related to the divine nature in Proslogion 5 onwards.9 In
6 Anselm uses several slightly differing formulations of the notion ‘that than which a greater
cannot be thought’ (id quo maius cogitari non potest): in front of quo we can have either
aliquid (‘something’) or id (‘that’) or no pronoun at all; maius can be replaced by melius (‘bet-
ter’); the negation can be expressed in different ways (with the aid of the adverb non, with
the aid of the pronoun nihil or nil, or with the aid of the verb nequit); the modal expres-
sion can appear in different forms (potest, possit, nequit, valet). In my understanding, there
is no systematic difference in meaning between the different formulations. I usually use the
formulation ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’. The discussion in 2.2 leans on
Toivo J. Holopainen, ‘Anselm’s Argumentum and the Early Medieval Theory of Argument’,
Vivarium 45 (2007), 1–29, at 3–5.
7 Note that the argument on God’s existence also includes a third stage, which is in Proslogion 3.
The two stages in Proslogion 2 already establish, in Anselm’s view, that that than which a
greater cannot be thought exists.
8 Proslogion 2, S I, 101.3–7.
9 The second request also apparently connects with the sentence that immediately follows, as
this sentence expresses something ‘we believe’ about ‘what’ God is, but this is coincidental.
In the overall architecture of the Proslogion, the feature that God is ‘that than which a greater
the second sentence, Anselm introduces the starting point for the train of
reasoning that he is going to present: we believe that God is ‘something than
which nothing greater can be thought’ (aliquid quo nihil maius cogitari possit).
Anselm introduces the idea that God is something than which a greater can-
not be thought as an item of belief. In the third sentence, finally, Anselm gets
to the topic to be discussed in Proslogion 2–4 by referring to the fool of the
psalms who ‘has said in his heart: there is no God’ (Psalm 14:1). Because of the
fool’s statement, Anselm asks whether there is ‘no such nature’, that is to say,
whether there is nothing of such a nature as ‘something than which nothing
greater can be thought’. The question is about the existence of God so that God
is perceived as that than which a greater cannot be thought.
To establish that God or that than which a greater cannot be thought ex-
ists in reality, Anselm presents an argument in two stages. In the first stage,
he argues that that than which a greater cannot be thought exists at least ‘in
the understanding’ (in intellectu), because when someone hears the expression
‘something than which a greater cannot be thought’, he understands it, and
whatever is understood is in the understanding. This applies even to the fool
who denies God’s existence:
But surely this same fool, when he hears what I say, ‘something than which
nothing greater can be thought’, he understands what he hears; and what
he understands is in his understanding, even if he does not understand
it to exist. For it is one thing for a thing to be in the understanding, and
another thing to understand a thing to exist. … Even the fool, then, is
convinced that something than which nothing greater can be thought is
at least in the understanding, since he understands this when he hears it,
and whatever is understood is in the understanding.10
Thus, even the fool needs to admit, on the basis of Anselm’s argument, that
‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ exists in the understanding.
In the second stage, Anselm further argues that ‘that than which a greater
cannot be thought’ also exists in reality:
But surely that than which a greater cannot be thought cannot be only
in the understanding. For if it were only in the understanding, it could
be thought to exist in reality as well, which is greater. Therefore, if that
cannot be thought’ is not among the items that Anselm seeks to explain but instead is the
starting point for the explanation.
10 Proslogion 2, S I, 101.7–15.
16 Chapter 2
than which a greater cannot be thought is only in the understanding,

this same that than which a greater cannot be thought is that than which
a greater can be thought. But surely this cannot be the case. Therefore,
without doubt, something than which a greater cannot be thought exists
both in the understanding and in reality.11
In this passage, for the first time, Anselm makes use of the distinctive pattern
of argumentation related to his single argument. To give a concrete idea of this
pattern, let me draw attention to four central features of the inference in the
passage:
1. The inference represents the type of reasoning known as indirect proof
or reductio ad absurdum. In an indirect proof, one proceeds as follows: If
you want to prove conclusion c, take the negation of c as an assumption
and try to deduce a contradiction. If you succeed, you can infer that the
negation of c is false and that c is true. In the inference under consider-
ation, the conclusion to be proved is that that than which a greater can-
not be thought does not exist only in the understanding but exists both
in the understanding and in reality. The negation of this conclusion is
that it exists only in the understanding. The contradictory statement that
Anselm deduces is that ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought is
that than which a greater can be thought.’ Because this is impossible, it is
not true that that than which a greater cannot be thought is only in the
understanding, and hence it is true that it exists both in the understand-
ing and in reality.
2. The contradiction deduced is, basically, that that than which a greater
cannot be thought is not that than which a greater cannot be thought.
The same contradiction can also be expressed in other ways. For exam-
ple, it can be expressed by saying that that than which a greater cannot
be thought is not what it is said to be, or, as in Proslogion 2, by saying that
‘that than which a greater cannot be thought is that than which a greater
can be thought’.
3. The contradiction derives from a comparison between that than which a
greater cannot be thought as having a certain attribute or predicate and
that than which a greater cannot be thought as not having that attribute
or predicate. In the inference under consideration, the comparison is be-
tween that than which a greater cannot be thought ‘being only in the
understanding’ and ‘not being only in the understanding’.
11 Proslogion 2, S I, 101.15–102.3.
4. The comparison that Anselm makes is in terms of ‘greatness’. Anselm as-

sumes that—at least in the case of that than which a greater cannot be
thought—having a certain kind of predicate is greater than not having it.
In the inference in Proslogion 2, Anselm assumes that ‘not being only in
the understanding’ is greater than ‘being only in the understanding’.
The ‘greatness’ that Anselm refers to is not related to physical size but to onto-
logical superiority or nobleness.12 Hence, ‘greater’ and ‘better’ are interchange-
able in these contexts.
In the introduction to this study, it was observed that Anselm fails to draw
the conclusion that God exists at the end of Proslogion 2. In spite of this, it
is clear that Anselm intended this conclusion to be understood. In Anselm’s
view, God is that than which a greater cannot be thought, and therefore prov-
ing that that than which a greater cannot be thought exists in reality is proving
that God exists in reality. Anselm’s failure to make this explicit at the end of
Proslogion 2 is due to the circumstance that he wanted to push his argument
one step further in the first half of Proslogion 3. The argument in that passage
starts from where the argument in Proslogion 2 ended, and it forms a third
stage in Anselm’s inference about God’s existence. The argument assumes
that that than which a greater cannot be thought exists (as demonstrated in
Proslogion 2), and strives to establish that it exists ‘so truly that it cannot even
be thought not to exist’:
And it assuredly exists so truly that it cannot even be thought not to

exist. For there can be thought to exist something that cannot be thought
not to exist, and this is greater than what can be thought not to exist.
Hence, if that than which a greater cannot be thought can be thought not
to exist, then this same that than which a greater cannot be thought is
not that than which a greater cannot be thought, and this is impossible.
Therefore, something than which a greater cannot be thought exists so
truly that it cannot even be thought not to exist.13
12 Cf. Monologion 2, S I, 15.19–20.

13 Proslogion 3, S I, 102.6–103.2. The interpretation of this passage has aroused much debate
in the anglophone scholarship of recent decades. Starting from Charles Hartshorne and
Norman Malcolm, a number of philosophers have contended that Anselm offers here a
‘second argument’ for God’s existence which is independent from the ‘first argument’ in
Proslogion 2. Whereas the ‘first argument’ concerns ‘existence’, the ‘second argument’ is
based on modal notions and concerns ‘necessary existence’. For the early phase of the
discussion, see John Hick and Arthur C. McGill (eds.), The Many-Faced Argument: Recent
Studies on the Ontological Argument for the Existence of God (New York: Macmillan, 1967),
209–18 and 301–56 (essays by Hartshorne, Malcolm and Hick). For a recent evaluation, see
A. D. Smith, Anselm’s Other Argument (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014).
18 Chapter 2
The argument in this passage, which is the third stage in Anselm’s infer-
ence about God’s existence, shares the same features as the second stage in
Proslogion 2:
1. The inference represents the type of reasoning known as indirect proof
or reductio ad absurdum.
2. The contradiction deduced is that that than which a greater cannot be
thought is not that than which a greater cannot be thought.
3. The contradiction derives from a comparison between that than which a
greater cannot be thought as having a certain attribute or predicate and
that than which a greater cannot be thought as not having that attribute
or predicate. Here, the comparison is between that than which a greater
cannot be thought ‘being able to be thought not to exist’ and ‘not being
able to be thought not to exist’.
4. The comparison that Anselm makes is in terms of greatness. Anselm
assumes that ‘not being able to be thought not to exist’ is greater than
‘being able to be thought not to exist’.
In the middle of Proslogion 3, Anselm again identifies that than which a greater
cannot be thought as God:
Therefore, something than which a greater cannot be thought exists so

truly that it cannot even be thought not to exist. And you are this being,
Lord our God. You, therefore, exist so truly, Lord my God, that you cannot
even be thought not to exist.14
Here, the conclusion of the three-stage argument in Proslogion 2–3 is applied

to God. The conclusion is about the manner of God’s existence, but the fact of
his existence is proved as well: God not only exists but exists in such a manner
that he cannot even be thought not to exist.
The last part of Proslogion 2 and the first part of Proslogion 3 are the two pas-
sages in which Anselm’s reductio appears in its most explicit form. However,
there are three other important passages in the Proslogion that are based on
The ‘modal ontological argument’, as it is called, may be interesting in its own right, but
it is rather clear that Anselm did not mean to present such an argument in Proslogion 3.
Anselm clarifies how the expression ‘cannot be thought not to exist’ should be construed
in Responsio 1, S I, 131.18–132.2 and Responsio 4, S I, 133.21–134.6. However, the viability of
the argument in Proslogion 3 does not require that the reader shares Anselm’s analysis of
what kind of existence is involved. It suffices that the reader concedes that it is possible
to conceive something that cannot be thought not to exist and that such a thing would be
greater than what can be thought not to exist.
the same argumentative idea. In Proslogion 5, Anselm proves that God is the
sole creator of all other things as follows:
What, then, are you, Lord God, than whom nothing greater can be
thought? But what are you except that which, as highest of all things,
alone existing through itself, made all other things from nothing? For
whatever is not this, is less great than can be thought. But this cannot be
thought about you.15
In Proslogion 15, Anselm famously proves that God is ‘something greater than
can be thought’:
Therefore, Lord, not only are you that than which a greater cannot be
thought, but you are something greater than can be thought. For since it
is possible to think that there is something of this kind, if you are not this
being, something greater than you can be thought, which cannot be.16
Finally, in Proslogion 18 Anselm proves that God is absolutely one and

indivisible:
How then, Lord, are you all these things? Are they parts of you, or is it
rather the case that each one of them is the whole of what you are? For
whatever is composed of parts is not altogether one but in a way many
and different from itself, and it can be broken up either actually or by
understanding. But this is foreign to you, than whom a better cannot be
thought. Therefore, there are no parts in you, Lord, nor are you many, but
you are so much one and the same with yourself that in no way are you
dissimilar with yourself. Indeed, you are unity itself, not divisible by any
understanding.17
Here, the reductio ad absurdum is expressed by saying that a certain set of char-
acterizations ‘is foreign to you, than whom a better cannot be thought’; there-
fore, the opposites of these characterizations will be valid. (As stated, ‘better’
and ‘greater’ are interchangeable in Anselm’s reductio.) What is at issue is the
unity of the divine essence, but the argument could have been more clearly
formulated. Anselm assumes that there is a link between indivisibility and
15 Proslogion 5, S I, 104.11–14.
16 Proslogion 15, S I, 112.14–17.
17 Proslogion 18, S I, 114.17–24.
20 Chapter 2
greatness. He fails to articulate the link here, but he makes it explicit in Epistola
de incarnatione Verbi:
And if he [Roscelin] is one of those modern dialecticians who believe

that nothing exists except what they can grasp in mental images and if he
does not think there to be anything in which there are no parts, assuredly
he will not deny understanding that if there were something which can
be broken up neither actually nor by understanding, it would be greater
than what can be broken up at least by understanding.18
Given this presupposition, it is clear that the inference in Proslogion 18 is an in-

stance of the same pattern of argumentation as the inferences in Proslogion 2,
3, 5, and 15.
It is possible to perceive this argumentative pattern in the Proslogion, if one
knows to look for it, and it is readily believable that the pattern has something
to do with the single argument. However, it is difficult to get more clarity on
the matter by analysing the actual text of the Proslogion. Hence, we next turn
to the material surrounding the actual text of the treatise: the preface to the
Proslogion, the Responsio, and Anselm’s first treatise, the Monologion. We start
from the text that comes first in chronological order, the Monologion.
2.3 The Monologion—a First Reading
Since Anselm himself, it has been customary to regard the Monologion and
the Proslogion as a pair.19 The works are connected thematically in the respect
that both of them deal with the divine essence and its attributes. However, the
Monologion also covers a number of other topics. There is a conspicuous dif-
ference in the mode of presentation used in the works, expressed in their titles:
one is a monologion, a ‘soliloquy’, in which the person disputes with himself (or
herself) by reflection alone, whereas the other is a proslogion, an ‘address’, in
which the person prays and addresses God as well as his (or her) own soul.20 In
the chapters that follow, we will often have the opportunity and need to make
18 Epistola de incarnatione Verbi 4, S II, 17.22–18.4.

19 For the publication history of the Monologion and the Proslogion, see 2.4, 7.4, and 9.1.
20 The persona who speaks in the Monologion and the Proslogion could, in principle, be of
either gender, and there may have been some women among the early readers of these
works. Nevertheless, Anselm’s main audience consisted of Benedictine monks. I try to
avoid using gender-specific pronouns when talking about the persona in the treatises or
the supposed reader, but when I need to, I mainly use masculine pronouns only.
reference to the Monologion. This initial discussion seeks to give a general idea
of the nature and content of the treatise as well as introduce some topics that
are useful to keep in mind while discussing the single argument.
The preface and chapter 1 of the Monologion contain some clear and em-
phatic remarks about the rational method to be used in the treatise. Anselm
begins the preface by disclosing that he had orally presented to his fellow-
monks some considerations about meditating on the divine essence and other
related themes. The brothers had then asked him to write out a model text for
their use, and they had given precise instructions about the form to be used in
the model meditation. The brothers had prescribed that Anselm should not
assert anything in the meditation on the authority of holy writings; he should
offer rational grounds instead. Anselm’s description of the rational method is
somewhat convoluted, but three key ideas emerge: the presentation should be
simple and commonsensical, Anselm should provide valid proof for whatever
he claims, and it should all be made evident by the clarity of truth. The broth-
ers had also asked Anselm to refute the possible objections that occurred to
him, even those that appeared simple and foolish.21 Anselm says that to the
best of his ability, he followed the prescribed method.22 Towards the end of the
preface, Anselm tells us that he will adopt the role of someone who disputes
with himself by reflection alone and investigates things that he has not previ-
ously considered, as those who had asked him to write the treatise desired.23
In Monologion 1, Anselm claims that a person who is ignorant of those things
that the Christians necessarily believe about God and his Creation could, to
a great extent, persuade himself of these matters by means of reason alone
(sola ratione), provided that he is of at least average intelligence. The investiga-
tion in the Monologion is an example of how this can be done. Anselm men-
tions two alternatives concerning the reason for the ignorance of the tenets
of Christianity: either the person has not heard of them, or has heard but has
not believed.24
The comments that Anselm makes in the early parts of the Monologion
make it quite clear that he intended to follow a rational method in his first trea-
tise. He wanted to ground his claims on rational arguments and not to appeal
to scriptural authority. The perspective from which Anselm writes the treatise
accentuates the method: he adopts the role of someone who has never even
heard of the tenets of the Christian faith, and he wishes hence to construct an
21 Monologion, preface, S I, 7.2–12.

24 Monologion 1, S I, 13.5–12.
22 Chapter 2
argument that such a person could also possibly conceive and would inevitably
accept. At the same time, Anselm wants to eliminate the suspicion that he has
some quarrel with the authoritative writings. In the preface, he claims that he
has re-examined the work several times and has not been able to find anything
there that would be inconsistent with the writings of the Church fathers, espe-
cially those of Augustine. Therefore, he asks those readers to whom it seems
he has said either something altogether new or something which differs from
the truth that they should first carefully inspect Augustine’s On the Trinity, and
then judge the Monologion on the basis of it.25 In Monologion 1, Anselm then
says that if he argues for something that a greater authority does not confirm,
he does not want it to be taken as ‘absolutely necessary’; rather, it should only
be said that for the time being, it is able to appear as necessary.26 These cau-
tions do little to qualify the purported rationality of Anselm’s method. Even if
his conclusions can be found in the authoritative writings, or at least should be
consistent with their content, Anselm’s intention is to prove these conclusions
with the aid of reason alone.
The Monologion consists of eighty chapters, and they have carefully formu-
lated chapter headings. One can get a quite good idea of the content of the
work by merely reading the list of chapters.27 Even though there are some dif-
ferences in the headings, the first four chapters aim to prove a single point:
there is something that is the highest of all existing things, that is, a Supreme
Being. In Monologion 1, Anselm argues that all things that are good are good
through one thing which is good through itself, and this one thing is supremely
good, that is, the highest of all existing things. In the following two chapters, the
same line of argument is continued: the things that are great are great through
one thing which is great through itself and is supremely great, and the things
that exist exist through one thing that exists through itself. Anselm also argues
that these considerations all point to the same thing, which is the highest of all
existing things. The argument in Monologion 4 is based on the idea that exist-
ing things can be graded according to excellence. There must be some thing or
nature to which all other things or natures are inferior, and this is, again, the
highest of all existing things.28
Chapters 5–14 of the Monologion take up some aspects of creation and con-
servation. Anselm first provides some clarifications concerning the idea that
the Supreme Being exists through itself and from itself, and all others exist

27 Monologion, Capitula, S I, 9–12.
28 Monologion 1–4, S I, 13–18.
through and from the Supreme Being.29 He then turns to an issue that is the
starting point for a series of investigations later in the Monologion. Anselm
claims that the Supreme Being speaks within itself of the things that it will
bring about, as a craftsman first tells himself what he is going to make.30 He
then argues that the utterance (locutio) with the aid of which the Supreme
Being speaks the things to be brought about is none other than the Supreme
Being.31 This is the basis for Anselm’s investigations of a Trinitarian structure
in the Supreme Being. Anselm postpones, however, the elaboration of the idea
to a later phase of the treatise. Monologion 13 is about conservation: the cre-
ated things continue to exist because they are sustained by the Supreme Being.
Monologion 14 claims that the Supreme Being ‘exists in all things and through
all things; and all things exist from it, through it, and in it’.32
Chapters 15–28 of the Monologion deal with the properties of the Supreme
Being. Among the themes to be discussed are: what can be substantially predi-
cated of the Supreme Being and how it is to be understood;33 the relation of
the Supreme Being to space and time;34 the applicability of the notions of ac-
cident and substance to the Supreme Being;35 the unique mode of being of
the Supreme Being, contrasted to the relative non-being of the creatures.36 An
elaboration of the Trinitarian structure in the Supreme Being then follows in
Monologion 29–63: the Supreme Spirit and the Word that it begets love each
other with a Love that is as great as the Supreme Spirit. Even though Anselm
uses more than thirty chapters to elaborate on this theme, I will only mention
the detail that Anselm strives to establish that the names ‘Father’, ‘Son’, and
‘Spirit’ can be applied to the three somethings in the Trinitarian structure.37 In
Monologion 64–65, Anselm raises certain questions related to methodology. In
Anselm’s understanding, investigating the Supreme Being is a peculiar kind of
exercise in that you really cannot know the exact meanings that some of the
words that you employ in the investigation have in that context, even though
you know their meanings in another context. However, Anselm is confident
that the arguments that he presents are nevertheless valid.38
29 Monologion 5–8, S I, 18–24.

30 Monologion 9–10, S I, 24–25.
31 Monologion 12, S I, 26.
32 Monologion 13–14, S I, 27.
33 Monologion 15–17, S I, 28–32.
34 Monologion 18–24, S I, 32–42.
35 Monologion 25–27, S I, 43–45.
36 Monologion 28, S I, 45–46.
37 See Monologion 39–42, S I, 57–59: ‘Father’ and ‘Son’, and Monologion 57, S I, 68–69: ‘Spirit’.
38 Monologion 64–65, S I, 74–77.
24 Chapter 2
In chapters 66–78 of the Monologion, Anselm considers the relation of crea-

tures of a rational nature, that is, humans and angels, to the Supreme Being.
Anselm argues, among other things, that the rational creature has been
made to love the Supreme Being; if it loves the Supreme Being, it will achieve
eternal blessedness, but if it despises the Supreme Being, it will be eternally
miserable.39 Anselm also argues that besides loving the Supreme Being, one
must also put one’s hope in it and believe in it; one must believe equally in the
Father and the Son and the Spirit.40 Anselm also makes a distinction between
a faith that is ‘dead’ and a faith that is ‘living’.41 In Monologion 79, he ponders
what common name one could use for the three in the Supreme Being.42 In
the final chapter, Monologion 80, he points out that the name ‘God’ applies to
the Supreme Being that has been discussed in the exercise. Even here, Anselm
does not give up the rational point of view. He does not appeal to the Christian
teaching about God but instead makes a claim about what people who pos-
tulate God or gods mean by the word ‘god’ and then argues that the Supreme
Being is the only being that can adequately meet this description. The name
‘god’ is understood to mean a substance that is believed to be higher than any
nature that is not god. To qualify as a ‘god’, a being must also be worthy of wor-
ship, and it must be capable of giving assistance in misfortunes. Anselm argues
that the Supreme Being that has been discussed in the Monologion meets these
requirements and is the only thing to which the name ‘god’ properly applies: it
‘not only is god but is the only God, ineffably three and one’.43
In sum, Anselm’s Monologion is a bold attempt at reconstructing a large seg-
ment of the Christian idea of God and of the Creation in relation to God on a
purely rational basis. This characterization is confirmed by what Anselm him-
self says about the Monologion in his Epistola de incarnatione Verbi, written
some fifteen years later:
But if someone will deem it worthy to read my two small works, namely
the Monologion and the Proslogion, which have been written especially
in order to show that what we hold by faith regarding the divine nature
and its persons, excluding the Incarnation, can be proved by necessary
reasons without appealing to the authority of Scripture …44
39 Monologion 68–72, S I, 78–82.

40 Monologion 75–77, S I, 83–84.
41 Monologion 78, S I, 84–85. We will return to these issues in Chapters 7–9.
42 Monologion 79, S I, 85–86. See also 4.1.
44 Epistola de incarnatione Verbi 4, S II, 20.16–19.
In this remark, Anselm speaks of the Monologion and the Proslogion jointly,
and it may already be noted here that Anselm saw no fundamental differ-
ence in the mode of argumentation in the two works: both of them proceed
‘by necessary reasons without appealing to the authority of Scripture’. When
it comes to Anselm’s joint characterization of the subject matter of the two
works, one can observe that it is not very precise. Anselm fails to mention that
the Monologion deals with themes other than ‘divine nature and its persons’,
and he fails to note that the Proslogion does not really deal with the three per-
sons of the Trinity (except for a very summary discussion in Proslogion 23). It
should be noted that the context in which Anselm presents his characteriza-
tion of the Monologion and Proslogion is a discussion about the Trinity and the
Incarnation.
To complete our initial discussion of the Monologion, let us deal with three
issues that are relevant for the single argument in the Proslogion. In the pref-
ace to the Proslogion, Anselm refers to an interconnected chain of many argu-
ments in his first treatise. In popular discussions of ‘Anselm’s argument’, this
is sometimes taken as a reference to Monologion 1–4, the idea being that these
chapters offer four arguments for God’s existence and that the single argument
will replace them. This is not helpful for two reasons. First, the single argument
is not primarily an argument for God’s existence. Second, even though the
first four chapters of the Monologion are concerned with an existence claim,
Anselm did not regard them as four arguments for God’s existence. Instead,
their function is to fix upon a certain thing or nature that will be the subject of
the examinations that follow. It is only at the end of the investigation, in the
last chapter of the Monologion, that this thing is identified as God.45 Anselm,
hence, first builds up a full picture of a Supreme Being and only in the end an-
nounces that it is God. The Monologion as a whole is to be seen as an argument
for God’s existence and the first four chapters are just an initial phase in that
argument.
Secondly, note that Anselm in Monologion 15 offers a systematization of
the attributes of the divine essence that points in the direction of his unum
argumentum. Anselm introduces the theme by asking which predicates ap-
plicable to created beings could apply to the supreme nature substantially
(substantialiter).46 The word ‘substantially’ has a background in early medieval
dialectic, in which it is the opposite of ‘accidentally’ (accidentaliter). One can
45 Anselm deliberately avoids using the word ‘God’ in the Monologion. It appears once in the
first chapter, before the beginning of the actual argument: Monologion 1, S I, 13.8. After
that, it is next used in Monologion 80, S I, 86–87.
26 Chapter 2
present two kinds of predications about a subject: substantial (or essential)

and accidental. For example, when we say that a man is an animal or that man
is rational, we predicate the predicates ‘animal’ and ‘rational’ of the subject
‘man’ substantially (essentially), for being an animal or being rational is part
of man’s essence or part of being a man. On the other hand, when we say of a
man that he is ‘clever’ or ‘tall’ or ‘sick’ or ‘prior of this monastery’, we predicate
these predicates of the subject ‘man’ accidentally, for the things mentioned
are not part of man’s essence or part of being a man. Now, one of Anselm’s
objectives in the Monologion is to critically discuss the applicability of dialecti-
cal notions to a treatment of the divine essence (see 4.1). It turns out that the
substantial predications about the Supreme Being differ in important respects
from the substantial predications about the created beings (Monologion 16–
17). Nevertheless, Anselm’s aim in Monologion 15 is to provide a criterion for
singling out those predicates that apply to the Supreme Being substantially.
Anselm begins the discussion in Monologion 15 by arguing that relational
terms are not predicated substantially of the Supreme Being, or of any subject,
for that matter. As an example, Anselm considers the idea that the Supreme
Being is ‘supreme’ (summum) of all things or ‘greater’ than all the things that it
created. He points out that if the Supreme Being were the only thing to exist,
then it would not be called or understood to be supreme or greater. Therefore,
being supreme of all or greater than all others is not substantial to the Supreme
Being.47
Anselm moves on to consider those terms that are not relative. He explains
that these can be divided into two classes. A non-relational term is either
such that ‘it’ (ipsum) is entirely (omnino) better than ‘not it’ (non ipsum), or
else such that ‘not it’ (non ipsum) is in some cases or in some respect (in aliquo)
better than ‘it’ (ipsum). ‘Wise’ is an example of a term of the former type. It is
entirely better to be wise than not wise. No matter what subject we are talking
about, it would be better if it were wise and not not-wise. ‘Gold’ is an example
of a term of the latter type. It is in some cases or in some respect better to be
not gold than gold. Even though some subjects that are not gold would be bet-
ter if they were gold, some others would be worse. For example, lead would be
better if it were gold, whereas man would be worse if he were gold (presum-
ably, because gold cannot be sentient and rational).48 It is the terms of the
former type (that is, the same type as ‘wise’) that are predicable of the supreme
nature:
47 Monologion 15, S I, 28.8–23.

48 Monologion 15, S I, 28.24–29.9.
Hence, as it is impious to think that the substance of the supreme nature

might be something in relation to which ‘not it’ would in some way be
better, so it is necessary that this substance is whatever is entirely better
than ‘not it’. For it alone is that than which nothing at all is better and
that is better than all things that are not what it is. … Hence, it is neces-
sary that it is living, wise, powerful and omnipotent, true, just, blessed,
eternal, and whatever in the same way is unconditionally better than ‘not
it’. Why, then, should we enquire any further what this supreme nature is,
if it is evident what of all things it is and what it is not?49
In Anselm’s understanding, the divine essence is ‘whatever is entirely better

than “not it”’ or ‘whatever is unconditionally better than “not it”’, for example
‘living, wise, powerful and omnipotent, true, just, blessed, eternal’. The attri-
butes of the divine essence are ‘great-making’ properties, as some scholars
have dubbed them. Note also that Anselm here characterizes the Supreme
Being as ‘that than which nothing at all is better’ (qua penitus nihil est melius).
Anselm’s way of systematizing the divine attributes led him towards the notion
‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’.
Thirdly and finally, note that Anselm claims, Monologion 68, that the ability
to make correct value judgements belongs to the essence of rationality.
Finally, for a rational nature being rational is nothing other than being
able to distinguish just from not just, true from not true, good from not
good, more good from less good.50
Obviously, the ability to discern which properties are great-making is also a

part of what it is to be rational. This is relevant for the (purported) rationality
of Anselm’s argument in the Proslogion.
2.4 The Preface and Responsio 10
Anselm lets us understand that he composed the Proslogion in order to intro-

duce the single argument that he had discovered. However, the actual text of
the Proslogion does not include any explicit reference to the argumentum in
question. It is not in the text of the Proslogion but in the preface that Anselm
announces his discovery. Since the preface is the only place where Anselm
49 Monologion 15, S I, 29.17–33.

50 Monologion 68, S I, 78.21–23.
28 Chapter 2
quite explicitly speaks of the single argument, any attempt to determine what
Anselm’s argumentum is and how it functions must ultimately depend on the
information that Anselm provides in the preface. In addition, there are two al-
most explicit references to the single argument in the Responsio. In Responsio 5
and Responsio 10, Anselm uses formulations which clearly refer to the descrip-
tion of the single argument given in the preface, and the remarks that Anselm
makes in these passages elucidate the description in the preface. The passage
in Responsio 5 plays a crucial role in the effort to find out what exactly is the
entity that Anselm calls unum argumentum (see especially 3.4). Responsio 10,
for its part, is the most important in determining the general argumentative
idea related to Anselm’s argumentum, which is our present concern.51
In the preface to the Proslogion, Anselm begins by making reference to his
first treatise, the Monologion (which did not yet carry the title Monologion; cf.
below). Anselm juxtaposes the Monologion and the Proslogion in the preface
and points out certain differences between them. The preface begins as follows:
After I had published, at the pressing requests of several of my brethren, a

certain short work as an example of meditating on the reason in faith, in
the role of someone who by silently reasoning with himself investigates
things that he does not yet know, considering that it was composed of an
interconnected chain of many arguments, I began to ask myself whether
it might be possible to find a single argument which would need no other
for proving itself than itself alone, and would suffice by itself to establish
that God truly exists, that he is the supreme good needing no other yet
needed by all for their existence and well-being, and whatever we believe
about the divine substance.52
Anselm continues by talking about his desperate search for the argument and
about his joy when he finally discovered it (cf. 2.1). He then comments on the
work that he wrote in the following way:
51 The discussion in 2.4 leans on Holopainen, ‘Anselm’s Argumentum’, 5–10, and

Toivo J. Holopainen, ‘The Proslogion in Relation to the Monologion’, The Heythrop Journal
50 (2009), 590–602, at 590–95.
52 Proslogion, preface, S I, 93.2–10: ‘Postquam opusculum quoddam velut exemplum me-
ditandi de ratione fidei cogentibus me precibus quorundam fratrum in persona alicuius
tacite secum ratiocinando quae nesciat investigantis edidi: considerans illud esse multo-
rum concatenatione contextum argumentorum, coepi mecum quaerere, si forte posset
inveniri unum argumentum, quod nullo alio ad se probandum quam se solo indigeret, et
solum ad astruendum quia deus vere est, et quia est summum bonum nullo alio indigens,
et quo omnia indigent ut sint et ut bene sint, et quaecumque de divina credimus substan-
tia, sufficeret.’
Judging, then, that what I rejoiced to have discovered would afford plea-
sure, if it were written down, for those who might read it, I wrote the fol-
lowing short work on this and various other topics, in the role of someone
endeavouring to elevate his mind to the contemplation of God and seek-
ing to understand what he believes.53
Anselm wrote the Proslogion ‘on this’ (de hoc ipso), that is, on the single argu-
ment that he had discovered, and hence it can be said that the treatise serves
to introduce the single argument. The treatise also deals with ‘various other
topics’, but Anselm fails to point out what these other topics are. There is also a
remark on the perspective from which Anselm composed the new treatise; we
will turn to it in a moment. The preface ends with remarks about the publica-
tion of the two treatises and the history of their titles. The original title of the
first treatise was An Example of Meditating on the Reason in Faith (Exemplum
meditandi de ratione fidei), and the second treatise originally carried the title
Faith Seeking Understanding (Fides quaerens intellectum). At a little later stage,
says Anselm, he was urged by several people to prefix his own name to the
titles of the work. In order that it could be done more fittingly, Anselm ex-
plains, he gave new titles to the works: ‘Monologion, that is, a soliloquy’, and
‘Proslogion, that is, an address’.54
In the juxtaposition of the Monologion and the Proslogion, Anselm makes
some comparisons between the two works and, equally important, fails to
make some other comparisons. The best known of the comparisons con-
cerns the complexity of argumentation: the Monologion was ‘composed of
an interconnected chain of many arguments’ whereas the Proslogion aims at
introducing ‘a single argument’. Here, it seems to me that it is no use trying
to identify any exact reference to the ‘interconnected chain of many argu-
ments’ in the Monologion. As already indicated, Anselm does not mean to refer
to Monologion 1–4 (see 2.3). If we suppose that the many arguments in the
Monologion are to do the same job as the single argument in the Proslogion
should do, that is, that of proving God’s existence and the truths about the
divine essence, we should look for the ‘many arguments’ in Monologion 1–28.
However, Anselm does not say that the many arguments do the same job that
53 Proslogion, preface, S I, 93.20–94.2: ‘Aestimans igitur quod me gaudebam invenisse, si

scriptum esset, alicui legenti placiturum: de hoc ipso et de quibusdam aliis sub persona
conantis erigere mentem suam ad contemplandum deum et quaerentis intelligere quod
credit, subditum scripsi opusculum.’
54 Proslogion, preface, S I, 94.2–13, especially lines 11–13: ‘Quod ut aptius fieret, illud quidem
Monologion, id est soliloquium, istud vero Proslogion, id est alloquium, nominavi.’ For fur-
ther discussion of the publication of the two treatises and their titles, see 7.4, 9.1, and 9.2.
30 Chapter 2
the single argument does. The remark about the chain of many arguments
is best understood as referring to the complexity of the arguments in the
Monologion as a whole.
An important comparison that Anselm fails to make concerns the point of
departure in the argumentation. When Anselm points out a difference in the
complexity of argumentation and fails to mention a difference in the point
of departure, the reader will assume that there is no difference regarding this
latter, more fundamental issue. In other words, the preface to the Proslogion
induces the reader to think that the single argument will be based ‘on reason
alone’ in the same way as the many arguments in the first treatise, and this is
the way Anselm wanted it to be. It was already pointed out (2.3) that Anselm in
Epistola de incarnatione Verbi offers a joint characterization of the Monologion
and the Proslogion: they aim to show that what the Christians believe about
the divine essence and the three Trinitarian persons can be proved by neces-
sary reasons without appealing to the authority of Scripture. From this it fol-
lows that the Monologion and the Proslogion share the same rational point of
departure. The Monologion and the Proslogion appear as two parts of the same
project with a common objective and a common methodology.
However, what about the fact that the Proslogion is a devotional exercise?
Does it not follow that the point of departure will be different? This brings us to
the other important comparison between the Monologion and the Proslogion
that Anselm makes in the preface to the latter work. The Monologion was writ-
ten ‘in the role of someone who by silently reasoning with himself investigates
things that he does not yet know’, whereas the Proslogion was written ‘in the
role of someone endeavouring to elevate his mind to the contemplation of God
and seeking to understand what he believes’. That is to say, the two treatises are
different in the respect that the subject matter in them is treated from a differ-
ent perspective. However, the preface to the Proslogion makes one think of this
difference as a difference in the mode of presentation. As far as this preface is
concerned, one could freely switch the modes of presentation in the two works
or instead use some other form (say, write a dialogue). The ‘point of departure’
in the Proslogion is different from that in the Monologion in that the two works
were composed from a different perspective, but this does not prevent there
being a common point of departure on a deeper methodological level. Even
though Anselm chose to introduce his single argument by using it in a devo-
tional exercise, it does not follow that the validity of the argument relies on the
devotional context or that the argument is dependent on the context in any
other significant way.55
55 Part 3 includes an extensive discussion of the Proslogion as a devotional exercise and the
function of the single argument in that exercise.
Anselm placed two requirements on the single argument that he was

searching for, and we are justified in supposing that the argument he rejoiced
in having discovered fulfilled these requirements. First, the argument should
be such that it ‘would need no other [argument] for proving itself than itself
alone’. This is a peculiar formulation, and the interpretation of it will have a
central role in the attempt to identify the entity that is the argumentum. Here,
suffice it to say that there are two sides in Anselm’s formulation: the single
argument does not need any other argument for its proof, and it can be used
for ‘proving itself’.
The second requirement placed on the single argument concerns its burden
and scope. The single argument should
suffice by itself to establish (1) that God truly exists, (2) that he is the
supreme good needing no other yet needed by all for their existence and
well-being, and whatever we believe about the divine substance.
It is the burden of the single argument to be able to demonstrate or establish

(astruere)56 some statements about God. The issues that it ought to be able
to establish and prove can be conveniently divided into two items. Item (1)
concerns God’s existence. Obviously, the inference about God’s existence in
Proslogion 2–3 is related to this part of the task of the argumentum. It is possi-
ble to ask whether item (1) is about the fact of God’s existence (cf. Proslogion 2)
or about the manner of his existence (cf. Proslogion 3). Nothing much depends
on this. Anselm was convinced that the single argument can establish both
the fact of God’s existence and the manner of his existence, and in the preface
he may have deliberately chosen a formulation that can be interpreted either
way. The fact of God’s existence is included in item (1) in either case, and I take
item (1) to be primarily about that fact.57
Item (2) is about what the Christians believe about the divine substance
or essence. Regarding it, four clarifications need to be made. First, the notion
that God is ‘the supreme good needing no other yet needed by all for their ex-
istence and well-being’ is part of what ‘we believe about the divine substance’.
What is at issue is the creative and sustaining activity of the divine essence. A
similar formulation appears at the end of Proslogion 22: ‘Nevertheless, you are
only one supreme good, altogether sufficient unto yourself, needing no one but
56 The verb astruere has a background in the art of dialectic or logic. See 4.2 and 4.3.
57 The inference in Proslogion 2–3 seeks to establish both the fact and the manner of God’s
existence, but Anselm fails to draw a conclusion about the fact of God’s existence at the
end of Proslogion 2.
32 Chapter 2
needed by all for their existence and well-being.’58 However, there is no argu-
ment for this claim in Proslogion 22. It was already presented in Proslogion 5
where Anselm proves that God is the creator to whom all other beings owe
their existence and well-being.59 In Proslogion 22, Anselm is only rounding up
his discussion about the ‘divine substance’.
The second clarification about item (2) is that the ‘divine substance’ should
here be understood as referring to the divine essence or the one Godhead, as
opposed to the three Trinitarian persons. In the Monologion, Anselm’s ambition
was to provide a rational demonstration for both what the Christians believe
about the divine essence and what they believe about the Trinitarian persons
(excluding the topic of incarnation). The Proslogion, for its part, does not aim
to establish claims about the Trinity. There is only a short statement of some
aspects of the Trinitarian doctrine in Proslogion 23, and in it, the Trinitarian na-
ture of God is not argued for but assumed.60 The single argument is about the
divine essence only; it need not be able to prove anything about the Trinitarian
doctrine.
Third, one needs to make a distinction between ‘what is believed about
the divine substance’ and ‘what is predicated substantially of the divine sub-
stance’. The latter formulation, adapted from Monologion 15, applies to the
theistic attributes. In that chapter, Anselm seeks to produce a systematization
of the theistic attributes and comes to the conclusion that the divine essence
is ‘whatever is unconditionally better than “not it”’, for example ‘living, wise,
powerful and omnipotent, true, just, blessed, eternal’.61 In Proslogion 5—which
proves to be one of the key chapters in the treatise—Anselm arrives at a simi-
lar conclusion through a different argument. As the creator of all that is good,
God must have all the good attributes:
What good, then, is lacking in the supreme good, through which every
good exists? Thus you are just, truthful, blessed, and whatever it is better
to be than not to be. For it is better to be just than not just, blessed than
not blessed.62
The theistic attributes that this systematization concerns are predicated sub-
stantially (substantialiter) of the divine essence, as Anselm makes clear in
58 Proslogion 22, S I, 117.1–2.

59 Proslogion 5, S I, 104.11–15.
60 Proslogion 23, S I, 117.
61 Monologion 15, S I, 29.29–31.
62 Proslogion 5, S I, 104.14–17.
Monologion 15, and they are an important part of what is traditionally believed
about the divine essence. However, there are also other relevant beliefs about
the divine essence. For example, it is believed that the divine essence is the
‘supreme’ (summum) of all things. In Monologion 15, Anselm points out that
the predicate ‘supreme’ is a relational one, and no relational predicate is predi-
cated substantially of anything.63 Actually, all the predicates applied to God
which refer to some other beings than God (that is, which refer to creatures)
are relational and are hence not predicated ‘substantially’ of God. The predi-
cate ‘the creator (of all other things)’ is a central predicate of that kind. Item (2)
in Anselm’s description of the single argument hence splits into two parts. On
the one hand are the theistic attributes that are predicated substantially of
God. On the other hand, there are the other things that are believed about the
divine essence, and the idea that God is the creator of all other things is one
of them. The first group is clearly defined, at least in principle, whereas the
second is more likely to be open-ended.
The fourth point of clarification is of a different type. Even though we do
not yet have a precise understanding of the single argument and we do not yet
have a complete picture of how Anselm uses it in the Proslogion, enough has
been said for a certain concern to arise. In the discussion of Anselm’s reductio
argument (2.2), it was claimed that there are five instances of that pattern of
argumentation in the Proslogion. Assuming that the reductio argument is es-
sential to Anselm’s single argument, is there not a discrepancy between how
Anselm describes his single argument, especially its item (2), and how he actu-
ally proceeds in the treatise? Raising this concern can help us towards an ap-
propriate understanding of the single argument and of its relation to the text
of the Proslogion. Anselm’s single argument is not a piece of argumentation
that Anselm would present in the course of the Proslogion. It is not a piece of
argumentation at all. Instead, the single argument is a means of argumenta-
tion: it is something that will make it possible for us to construct pieces of
argumentation. For the introduction of the single argument, it is sufficient that
Anselm shows the way in which it is possible to prove a number of claims about
God with the aid of one means of argumentation. He need not actually prove
all those claims in the Proslogion.
Proceeding now to a treatment of the general argumentative idea related to
Anselm’s argumentum, I first consider the traditional theistic attributes, which
are a central part of what is believed about the divine essence. Anselm thought
that it was possible to systematize these attributes in a certain way: the divine
essence is ‘whatever is unconditionally better than “not it”’ (Monologion 15) or
63 Monologion 15, S I, 28.8–23.

34 Chapter 2
‘whatever it is better to be than not to be’ (Proslogion 5). To put it differently,

Anselm holds that the attributes of the divine essence are great-making prop-
erties. This systematization of the theistic attributes makes it possible to show
that that than which a greater cannot be thought must have each and every
one of the theistic attributes. For example, we can prove in the following way
that that than which a greater cannot be thought is wise:
If that than which a greater cannot be thought were not wise, it could be
thought to be wise, which is greater.
Therefore, if that than which a greater cannot be thought were not wise,
then that than which a greater cannot be thought would be that than
which a greater can be thought.
But this is impossible.
Therefore, that than which a greater cannot be thought is wise.
This inference is modelled on the last part of Proslogion 2 and the first part of
Proslogion 3, and it shares the four features that are typical of Anselm’s reductio
argument (see 2.2). The inference is an indirect proof or reductio ad absurdum.
The contradiction that is derived is that that than which a greater cannot be
thought is not what it is said to be. The contradiction is deduced by making a
comparison between that than which a greater cannot be thought as having
a certain attribute and not having this attribute. The comparison is made in
terms of greatness. Because it holds true of the traditional theistic attributes
that each and every one of them is ‘better than “not it”’, this kind of inference
can successfully be applied to any of them.
The theistic attributes are a central part of what is believed about the divine
essence, but the single argument should be able to establish other things as
well. It should make it possible to prove God’s existence, and it should make
it possible to prove whatever the Christians believe about the divine essence.
Is it possible to prove these things using the strategy of argumentation that
applies to the theistic attributes? We already know that Anselm makes use
of the same argumentative idea in his inference about God’s existence.64 We
also know that, in the Proslogion, Anselm uses the same idea to establish some
claims about the divine essence that are not about the theistic attributes (in
Proslogion 5, 15, and 18). For example, in Proslogion 5 Anselm uses the argu-
mentative idea to establish that God is the creator. Can we affirm that one can
prove in this way ‘whatever we believe about the divine substance’, as Anselm
requires of his single argument?
64 However, the reductio is used in the second stage of the argument in Proslogion 2, whereas
the first stage is based on a different idea (see 3.2).
In Anselm’s opinion, we can. This is clear on the basis of Responsio 10, which
also confirms the understanding about the functioning of the single argument
that has been outlined. Anselm’s main concern in the Responsio, apparently, is
to answer the objections presented by Gaunilo and to point out some mistakes
in Gaunilo’s reading of his text. In the last section, however, Anselm offers a
more general comment on the Proslogion. Given that Anselm’s outspoken ob-
jective with the publication of the treatise was the introduction of the single
argument, it is natural that he comments on this argument in the concluding
remark.
The first lines of Responsio 10 contain Anselm’s judgement on the validity of
his argument for God’s existence in Proslogion 2 (or Proslogion 2–3) and on the
force of the criticisms presented by Gaunilo.
I think I have now shown that my argumentation in the aforementioned

short work to prove that something than which a greater cannot be
thought exists in actual reality was not feeble but quite cogent and that
none of the objections has the power to weaken it.65
In the following lines, however, the perspective is widened. The remark which
follows is not only about a proof dealing with existence but also about proofs
dealing with whatever is believed about the divine essence.
For the signification of this utterance [‘something than which a greater

cannot be thought’] contains in itself so much force that what is said is
necessarily, by the mere fact that it is understood or thought of, proved
both to exist in reality and to be whatever should be believed about the
divine substance. For we believe about the divine substance whatever
can be thought better to be than not to be, unconditionally. For example,
it is better to be eternal than not eternal, good than not good, indeed
goodness itself than not goodness itself. But that than which something
greater cannot be thought cannot fail to be anything of this kind. It is,
hence, necessarily the case that that than which a greater cannot be
thought is whatever should be believed about the divine substance.66
65 Responsio 10, S I, 138.28–30: ‘Puto quia monstravi me non infirma sed satis necessaria ar-
gumentatione probasse in praefato libello re ipsa existere aliquid, quo maius cogitari non
possit; nec eam alicuius obiectionis infirmari firmitate.’
66 Responsio 10, S I, 138.30–139.8: ‘Tantam enim vim huius prolationis in se continet signifi-
catio, ut hoc ipsum quod dicitur, ex necessitate eo ipso quod intelligitur vel cogitatur, et
revera probetur existere, et id ipsum esse quidquid de divina substantia oportet credere.
Credimus namque de divina substantia quidquid absolute cogitari potest melius esse
quam non esse. Verbi gratia: melius est esse aeternum quam non aeternum, bonum quam
36 Chapter 2
In this passage, Anselm offers a condensed description of how his single ar-
gument functions. The starting point of the argument is the utterance ‘that
than which a greater cannot be thought’. The outcome is that that than which
a greater cannot be thought ‘exists in reality’ and is ‘whatever should be be-
lieved about the divine substance’. Anselm is obviously here referring to his
description of the single argument in the preface, even though the formula-
tions are different. In addition, Anselm presents an explicit statement about
what it is that should be believed about the divine substance: ‘we believe about
the divine substance whatever can be thought better to be than not to be, un-
conditionally’. It turns out that the systematization that was earlier presented
in connection with the theistic attributes applies, perhaps slightly modified,
to all those predicates that are believed to be true of the divine essence.67
As a consequence, the strategy of argumentation that was explained can be
successfully applied to those predicates that are believed to be true of the
divine essence.
To conclude, appealing to the signification of the utterance ‘that than which
a greater cannot be thought’, it should be possible to establish that that than
which a greater cannot be thought both exists in reality and is ‘whatever should
be believed about the divine substance’. Anselm’s reductio can obviously be
used for deriving the relevant conclusions. This general idea related to Anselm’s
argumentum has actually been recognized quite often in the Anselmian schol-
arship of the recent decades.68 However, the full significance of the idea for the
interpretation of the Proslogion has not been properly perceived, and there is
unclarity about what exactly should be identified as the single argument here.
non bonum, immo bonitatem ipsam quam non ipsam bonitatem. Nihil autem huiusmodi
non esse potest, quo maius aliquid cogitari non potest. Necesse igitur est “quo maius cogi-
tari non potest” esse, quidquid de divina essentia credi oportet.’
67 Anselm anticipates this in Monologion 15, S I, 29.10–15: he hints that some relative terms
may be included in his classification of two kinds of predicates, but he does not discuss
the matter because no relative term is predicated ‘substantially’.
68 Especially Jasper Hopkins has drawn attention to the idea in many of his writings. See,
for example, Jasper Hopkins and Herbert Richardson, Anselm of Canterbury, vol. I:
Monologion, Proslogion, Debate with Gaunilo, and a Meditation on Human Redemption
(Toronto-New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1974), 153, note 29, and Jasper Hopkins, ‘Anselm
of Canterbury’, in Jorge J. E. Gracia and Timothy B. Noone (eds.), A Companion to the
Philosophy in the Middle Ages (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003), 138–51, at 139–41. See 3.1 for
some further references.
Chapter 3
A Specific Identification of the Argument
3.1 Candidates for the Argument
The first task in interpreting the Proslogion is that of acquiring an accurate un-
derstanding of the single argument, the discovery of which Anselm announces
in the preface. Identifying the general argumentative idea related to Anselm’s
effort (2.4) is a major step in this direction.1 However, Anselm presumably
had a specific entity in mind when he composed the description of the single
argument.2 What is that entity? What is the thing that the expression ‘single
argument’ refers to? Clarifying this issue is the main objective in the present
chapter, but at the same time, I also seek to elucidate the significance of the
matter for the interpretation of the Proslogion.
The initial difficulty in the attempt to identify the single argument is that
one cannot know at the outset what kind of entity one is looking for. Assuming
that the general argumentative idea described in the preceding chapter is cen-
trally related to Anselm’s single argument, at least six candidates for the single
argument can be suggested. The single argument could be:
A) a comprehensive ‘piece of argumentation’ in which some of the argu-
ments are based on the general argumentative idea described,
B) an argument form which captures the structure of Anselm’s argumenta-
tive idea,
1 Even though the centrality of the argumentative strategy has been widely recognized in
recent specialized studies, there are also many exceptions. In particular, Sandra Visser and
Thomas Williams, Anselm (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), implicitly claim that
the argumentative idea described is not central to Anselm’s procedure in the Proslogion
(109). They maintain (73–93) that the single argument is an argument for God’s existence
that Anselm does not explicitly present until the Responsio but that nevertheless underlies
the argument in Proslogion 2; this argument is a version of the ‘modal ontological argu-
ment’. Gregory Schufreider, Confessions of a Rational Mystic: Anselm’s Early Writings (West
Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1994), acknowledges the argumentative idea (126) but
claims that the single argument is an argument for God’s existence that ‘spans Proslogion 2–3’
(165–68). Eileen C. Sweeney, Anselm of Canterbury and the Desire for the Word (Washington,
DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2012), 147, barely mentions the argumentative idea
and supposes that ‘the exact reference of argumentum’ does not make much difference.
2 Anselm obviously did not have any specific entity in mind when he started looking for a
single argument. However, he had already discovered the argument when he wrote the pref-
ace to the Proslogion.

38 Chapter 3
C) the argumentative idea itself conceived in some less technical way than
in alternative B,
D) the notion ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’,
E) the definition of ‘God’ as ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’, or,
F) the sentence ‘God is that than which a greater cannot be thought’.
Obviously, some of the alternatives are overlapping (B and C, D and E, and
E and F). I next present brief comments on the different alternatives for the
purpose of reducing the initial attractiveness of some of them and directing
attention to issues that I deem to be important.3
According to alternative A, Anselm’s single argument is a comprehen-
sive piece of argumentation which includes, as its parts, arguments based
on Anselm’s reductio technique.4 It can, in principle, come in two versions.
First, the single argument could be a comprehensive argument that Anselm
actually presents in the Proslogion. There are five passages based on the reduc-
tio pattern in the Proslogion (see 2.2), and it can be suggested that the single
argument is a comprehensive argument that centres on these five passages.
However, it is doubtful whether the argumentation Anselm actually presents
in the Proslogion has the kind of internal unity that the single argument ought
to have (see also 3.2). The other version of alternative A is that the single argu-
ment is a comprehensive argument that Anselm does not explicitly present
but which lies beneath the surface of the argumentation in the Proslogion. To
develop this alternative, one would need to spell out a reasonable argumenta-
tive structure based on the reductio pattern which can be shown to underlie
the actual argumentation in the Proslogion.
Alternative A appeals to modern readers because it takes the single argu-
ment to be an ‘argument’ in our sense of the word, that is, a piece of argu-
mentation. If that cannot be achieved, it may be felt that the single argument
3 For a discussion of some ways in which the single argument has been identified in the anglo-
phone, German and French discussions of the past decades, see Toivo J. Holopainen, Dialectic
and Theology in the Eleventh Century (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 133–35. For my earlier efforts to
pin down the single argument, see Dialectic and Theology, 133–45, and Toivo J. Holopainen,
‘Anselm’s Argumentum and the Early Medieval Theory of Argument’, Vivarium 45 (2007),
1–29.
4 This roughly corresponds to what Jasper Hopkins appears to have in mind when he pro-
poses ‘a single line of reasoning’ as a translation for unum argumentum. See Jasper Hopkins
and Herbert Richardson, Anselm of Canterbury, vol. I: Monologion, Proslogion, Debate with
Gaunilo, and a Meditation on Human Redemption (Toronto-New York: Edwin Mellen Press,
1974), 153, note 29, and Jasper Hopkins, Anselm of Canterbury, vol. IV: Hermeneutical and
Textual Problems in the Complete Treatises of St. Anselm (Toronto-New York: Edwin Mellen
Press, 1976), 3, 110. In addition, see Ian Logan, Reading Anselm’s Proslogion: The History of
Anselm’s Argument and its Significance Today (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 125–27.
A Specific Identification of the Argument 39
should nevertheless be something as close to a piece of argumentation as pos-

sible. Hence the suggestion that it is an argument form which captures the gist
in Anselm’s strategy of argumentation (alternative B). For example, the struc-
ture of Anselm’s reductio could be expressed using a predicate variable in some
of the sentences; concrete pieces of argumentation can then be derived from
it by substituting the variable with different predicates.5 However, argument
forms are entities of a rather abstract kind. Anselm and his contemporaries
were capable of recognizing argument forms, to some extent at least, but it was
not as natural for them to operate with argument forms as it is for philosophers
in the analytic tradition. In this respect, alternative C is better. It is possible to
conceive the general idea in Anselm’s strategy of argumentation without tying
it to any technical rendering of the argument form. Anselm must have had an
understanding of the general idea in question, and his contemporaries were
also capable of achieving an understanding of it.
A lot more could be said of alternatives A to C and different ways of elaborat-
ing them. From the viewpoint of getting a historically grounded understanding
of the Proslogion, such an exercise would largely be a waste of time. There is
a general idea related to Anselm’s argument, there are various ways in which
the general idea can be expressed as an argument form, and it is possible to
construct various kinds of comprehensive arguments that make use of the idea
and the argument form(s). However, none of the aforementioned can be iden-
tified as the ‘single argument’ that Anselm has in mind. The single argument
is something more basic—some means of argumentation which underlies the
general idea and the pieces of argumentation making use of it.
Alternatives D to F include three suggestions about how this means of ar-
gumentation should be identified. The single argument could be the notion
‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ (D), or, the definition of ‘God’
as ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ (E), or the sentence ‘God is
that than which a greater cannot be thought’ (F).6 As an initial argument for
5 See Richard R. La Croix, Proslogion II and III: A Third Interpretation of Anselm’s Argument
(Leiden: Brill, 1972), 123–25, 130; Brian Leftow, ‘Anselm’s Perfect-Being Theology’, in Brian
Davies and Brian Leftow (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Anselm (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2004), 132–56, at 140–41. See also Logan, Reading Anselm’s Proslogion,
125–27.
6 Alternatives D to F have jointly found quite many supporters in recent scholarship. However,
scholars sometimes fail to state their position accurately. For example, Karl Barth, Anselm:
Fides Quaerens Intellectum, trans. Ian W. Robertson (London: SCM Press, 1960), 13–14, claims
that ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ is the unum argumentum (which here is
alternative D), but when continuing the discussion, Barth in practice assumes that the argu-
mentum is a revealed definition of God (which falls under E) or an article of faith (which falls
under F). It appears that some scholars prefer to leave several alternatives open. For example,
40 Chapter 3
alternative D, it can be pointed out that Anselm claims that his argumentation
in the Proslogion, or at least in Proslogion 2–3, is based on the force that the
signification of the utterance ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’
has.7 On the other hand, the burden of the single argument is to prove a num-
ber of statements about God. To apply the proofs about that than which a
greater cannot be thought to God, it seems that an identification of that than
which a greater cannot be thought as God is required. This is the motivation
for alternatives E and F. The endeavour to identify the single argument revolves
around D, on the one hand, and the different versions of E and F, on the other.
Alternatives E and F are closely related. For a large part, they are two differ-
ent ways of speaking about the same thing. Both E and F can be divided into
three distinct versions, which correspond to each other. In the first version of
E, ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ is taken to be the definition
of ‘God’ roughly in the same way as ‘unmarried man’ is the definition of ‘bach-
elor’. The relation between the two expressions is assumed to be obvious to any
rational person who has the required linguistic competence. Correspondingly,
the sentence ‘God is that than which a greater cannot be thought’ can be taken
to be a conceptual truth which anyone should concede without argument.8
In the second version of E, ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ is
taken as a revealed definition of God (a ‘name’ of God), and as such it need not
be obvious to every—or any—rational person. Correspondingly, the sentence
G. R. Evans, ‘Anselm’s Life, Works, and Immediate Influence’, in Davies and Leftow (eds.), The
Cambridge Companion to Anselm (2004), 5–31, at 12–13, relates the story of Anselm’s discovery
and ends as follows: ‘There is a case for saying that the “argument” he believed he had discov-
ered was a notion or principle which could be applied in a sequence of argumentation or set
like a jewel in a passage of prayer.’ In addition to suggesting that unum argumentum can be
translated as ‘a single line of reasoning’ (see note 4 above), Jasper Hopkins has also proposed
the translation ‘a single consideration’. See Hopkins, Hermeneutical and Textual Problems, 3;
Jasper Hopkins, ‘Anselm of Canterbury’, in Jorge J. E. Gracia and Timothy B. Noone (eds.), A
Companion to the Philosophy in the Middle Ages (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003), 138–51, at 140.
7 Responsio 10, S I, 138.30–139.3. Many other German scholars besides Karl Barth have identified
‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ as the single argument, for example, Franciscus
Salesius Schmitt, ‘Einführung’, in Anselm von Canterbury, Proslogion (Stuttgart-Bad
Cannstatt: Frommann, 1962), 9–65, at 47–50, and Jörn Müller, ‘Ontologischer Gottesbeweis?
Zur Bedeutung und Funktion des unum argumentum in Anselm von Canterburys Proslogion’,
in Roberto Hofmeister Pich (ed.), Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109): Philosophical Theology
and Ethics (Porto: Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Études Médiévales, 2011), 37–71,
at 38–45. Richard Campbell, From Belief to Understanding: A Study of Anselm’s Proslogion
Argument on the Existence of God (Canberra: The Australian National University, 1976), 10,
tentatively claims that the single argument is ‘a single formula’.
8 The first version of E and F is an obvious development of the conventional reading of the
Proslogion.
‘God is that than which a greater cannot be thought’ can be taken as an article
of faith.9 These two versions of E and F have the shortcoming that it is difficult
to see what sense they can make of the requirement that the single argument
ought to be such that it ‘would need no other [argument] for proving itself
than itself alone’.10 There are two sides to this requirement. On the one hand,
the single argument must not need any other argument for its proof. On the
other hand, it ought to be possible to use the single argument to ‘prove itself’, to
back itself up in some significant way. If the sentence ‘God is that than which
a greater cannot be thought’ is supposed to have an axiomatic status, it is dif-
ficult to see what the latter side of the requirement could mean in its case.
The third versions of E and F avoid this difficulty. ‘That than which a greater
cannot be thought’ can be initially taken as a potential definition of God, and
the sentence ‘God is that than which a greater cannot be thought’ can be taken
as a thesis which does not have an axiomatic status in the beginning. This
opens up a way of explaining the requirement that the single argument should
be able to ‘prove itself’, as it will be possible to argue for the identity of God and
that than which a greater cannot be thought by showing that that than which
a greater cannot be thought necessarily has all the predicates that are believed
to be true of the divine essence. Many scholars seem to think that presenting
such an argument is part of what Anselm is doing in the Proslogion.11 This is an
interesting idea and needs to be examined further.
It might be possible to apply the same idea for the view that the mere no-
tion ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ is Anselm’s single argument
(D). However, in Responsio 5, Anselm claims that the notion ‘that than which a
greater cannot be thought’ has the capability of ‘proving’ things ‘about itself by
means of itself’ (de se per seipsum probat),12 and what is at issue is not the iden-
tity of God and that than which a greater cannot be thought. Some features of
the passage suggest that Anselm’s aim here is to explain what the remark about
the single argument being able to ‘prove itself’ means.
9 Barth, Anselm: Fides Quaerens Intellectum.

10 Proslogion, preface, S I, 93.6–7.
11 The view that Anselm treats the divine attributes to establish that that than which a great-
er cannot be thought is God has been defended, among others, by La Croix, Proslogion
II and III, 1–26; Jasper Hopkins, ‘On Understanding and Preunderstanding St. Anselm’,
The New Scholasticism 52 (1978), 243–60; Logan, Reading Anselm’s Proslogion, 85–127. It
should be noted, however, that La Croix and Logan take the single argument to be a single
form of argument. Some scholars have claimed that Anselm already proves the identity
of God and that than which a greater cannot be thought in Proslogion 3. See 3.2, especially
note 18, and 3.3, especially note 54.
12 Responsio 5, S I, 135.21–22.
42 Chapter 3
This chapter makes a case for holding that Anselm’s single argument is the
mere notion ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ (D), and not this
notion taken as a definition of God (E) or the sentence ‘God is that than which
a greater cannot be thought’ (F). First, Anselm’s argumentation about God
in the Proslogion is discussed from the perspective that it is a contingent ap-
plication of the single argument (3.2). Then we enquire into the relationship
between ‘God’ and ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ in the con-
text of Anselm’s argument (3.3). The last section offers an explanation of what
Anselm’s remark about the single argument ‘proving itself’ means and makes a
case for identifying the argument (3.4).
3.2 A Contingent Application
In the preface to the Proslogion, Anselm offers a short description of the pur-
pose of the treatise and the mode of presentation to be used in it:
Judging, then, that what I rejoiced to have discovered would afford plea-
sure, if it were written down, for those who might read it, I wrote the fol-
lowing short work on this and various other topics, in the role of someone
endeavouring to elevate his mind to the contemplation of God and seek-
ing to understand what he believes.13
The description indicates that the Proslogion is to be seen as a contingent ap-

plication of the single argument. The treatise serves to introduce the argument
that Anselm rejoiced to have discovered, but it also deals with ‘various other
topics’, and Anselm leaves it to the readers to separate these different elements
in the treatise. What is more, the treatise is composed from a distinctive point
of view: it is a devotional exercise in which a person endeavours to elevate his
mind to the contemplation of God and seeks to understand what he believes.
The way in which the point of view chosen is announced suggests that the
single argument does not depend on it; Anselm could have introduced the ar-
gument equally well in a work of an entirely different nature, say, in another
monologion. The joint characterization of the Monologion and Proslogion that
Anselm later presents in Epistola de incarnatione Verbi confirms the correct-
ness of this impression by underlining the rational methodology that Anselm’s
first two treatises share (see 2.3 and 2.4). Even though Anselm introduces the
single argument by applying it in a devotional exercise, being devotional is
13 Proslogion, preface, S I, 93.20–94.2.

not a feature of the single argument but of a contingent application of it. In

addition to discriminating between the ‘various other topics’ and that which
is related to the single argument, those striving to understand Anselm’s single
argument and the Proslogion also need to sort out, at least approximately, that
which is essential to the single argument and that which is due to the specific
devotional application.
There are twenty-six chapters in the main body of the Proslogion. For pres-
ent purposes, the structure in them can be presented as follows:
1. Arousal of the mind for the devotional exercise (chapter 1);
2. The existence of God (chapters 2–4);
3. The essence of God (chapters 5–22)
a. God the creator and his attributes (chapters 5–14a),
b. Incomprehensibility of God (chapters 14b–17),
c. Unity of God (chapters 18–22);
4. The Trinitarian nature of God (chapter 23);
5. The conclusion of the devotional exercise (chapters 24–26).
The single argument is concerned with God’s existence (chapters 2–4) and
God’s essence (chapters 5–22). It is in these parts of the Proslogion that there
is argumentation based on the single argument; chapters 1, 23, and 24–26 are
not relevant here.
Starting from Anselm’s treatment of God’s existence in Proslogion 2–4, these
chapters can be regarded as a self-contained whole. The chapters are often pro-
duced separately, a practice Anselm himself initiated by placing chapters 2–4
in front of Gaunilo’s criticism as an appendix to the Proslogion. Some commen-
tators have claimed that Anselm’s proof of God’s existence is not yet complete
after these chapters because Anselm still has to prove that that than which a
greater cannot be thought is God.14 Claims of this kind are based on specu-
lative reconstructions about how Anselm’s overall argumentation should be
construed. The closing invocation of chapter 4 makes it quite clear that Anselm
conceived his first major task in the Proslogion to be accomplished:
Thanks to you, good Lord, thanks to you, because what I first believed
through your giving, I now so understand by your illumination that even
if I did not want to believe it, I would not be able not to understand that
you exist.15
14 See note 11 above for references.

44 Chapter 3
The main burden of Proslogion 2–4 is to prove God’s existence, and that task is
brought to an end by the closing lines of chapter 4.
Anselm’s inference about God’s existence in Proslogion 2–3 has already
been discussed at some length (see 2.2). In Proslogion 2, Anselm introduces the
idea that God is that than which a greater cannot be thought, saying that ‘we
believe’ this to be the case. Referring to the fool, Anselm raises the question
whether there is such a being. There then follows an argument in two stages
in favour of the conclusion that that than which a greater cannot be thought
exists in reality. In the first stage, Anselm argues that that than which a greater
cannot be thought is in the understanding. In the second stage, Anselm makes
use of the reductio technique for the first time and argues that that than which
a greater cannot be thought exists in reality as well. Proslogion 3 continues
from where Proslogion 2 ended. Anselm adds a third stage to his inference on
God’s existence and uses the reductio strategy to establish that that than which
a greater cannot be thought exists so truly that it cannot even be thought not
to exist. In the middle of Proslogion 3, the conclusion of the argument is ap-
plied to God. The conclusion is formally about the manner of God’s existence,
but the fact of his existence has also been established: God not only exists but
exists in such a way that he cannot even be thought not to exist.
In the middle of Proslogion 3, when Anselm identifies that than which a
greater cannot be thought as God, this is a matter of course.16 Anselm next
proceeds to present some remarks about the appropriateness of the conclu-
sion reached. In a way, these remarks also serve to show the appropriateness
of the identification of God with that than which a greater cannot be thought:
And this is rightly so. For if some mind could think something better than
you, the creature would rise above the creator and pass judgement on the
creator, which is quite absurd. And indeed, whatever there is, except you
alone, can be thought not to exist. Therefore, you alone exist most truly
of all and, hence, have existence to the highest degree; for whatever else
there is does not exist as truly and so has existence to a lesser degree.17
It would nevertheless be exaggerated to see these remarks as a ‘proof’ for the

identity of God and that than which a greater cannot be thought.18
18 Cf. Anselm Stolz, ‘Anselm’s Theology in the Proslogion’, trans. Arthur C. McGill, in Hick
and McGill (eds.), The Many-Faced Argument (1967), 183–206 (German original 1933);
Arthur C. McGill, ‘Recent Discussions of Anselm’s Argument’, in Hick and McGill
In the last part of Proslogion 3, Anselm points out the fool’s folly: even
though God exists most truly of all, the fool denies his existence.19 Proslogion 4
discusses the problem involved in the fool’s denial: if God exists so truly that he
cannot be thought not to exist, how is it possible that the fool thinks God does
not exist? Anselm solves the problem by distinguishing two ways of thinking
about a thing: ‘in one way a thing is thought when the word signifying it is
thought, and in another way when that which the thing is is understood.’20
While elucidating the latter way, Anselm refers to his strategy of proving state-
ments about God starting from the notion ‘that than which a greater cannot
be thought’:
Indeed, no one who understands that which God is can think that God
does not exist, even though he may say these words in his heart either
without any signification or with some strange signification. For God is
that than which a greater cannot be thought. Whoever understands this
properly, surely understands this very thing to exist in such a way that not
even in thought can it not exist. Therefore, whoever understands God to
exist in this way cannot think that he does not exist.21
The point in this passage is parallel to a point that Anselm makes in Responsio 10:
the signification of this utterance [‘something than which a greater can-

not be thought’] contains in itself so much force that what is said is nec-
essarily, by the mere fact that it is understood or thought of, proved both
to exist in reality and to be whatever should be believed about the divine
substance.22
If one understands the signification of the utterance ‘that than which a greater
cannot be thought’, one will also understand that that than which a greater
cannot be thought not only exists but exists in such a manner that it cannot be
thought not to exist. But this being is God. If one thinks of God as something
that cannot be thought not to exist, one cannot think that he does not exist.
(eds.), The Many-Faced Argument (1967), 33–110, at 40, 47–48; Campbell, From Belief to
Understanding, 19–23, 126–50.
19 Proslogion 3, S I, 103.9–11.
20 Proslogion 4, S I, 103.18–19.
21 Proslogion 4, S I, 103.20–104.4.
22 Responsio 10, S I, 138.30–139.3.
46 Chapter 3
Before concluding the discussion about Proslogion 2–4, there is one more ob-
servation to be made. It could be suggested that Anselm should have proved
the existence of God or that than which a greater cannot be thought as follows:
If that than which a greater cannot be thought did not exist, it could be
thought to exist, which is greater. Therefore, if that than which a greater
cannot be thought did not exist, then that than which a greater cannot
be thought would be that than which a greater can be thought. But this
is impossible. Therefore, that than which a greater cannot be thought ex-
ists. (N. B. This is not Anselm’s text.)
There is an obvious reason why Anselm did not argue like this: he thinks that
one cannot think of that than which a greater cannot be thought as not exist-
ing. Anselm probably felt that he had better avoid nonsensical premises.23 The
two-stage argument in Proslogion 2 evades this problem: Anselm first presents
an independent argument for the claim that that than which a greater cannot
be thought ‘is in the understanding’ and only after that uses the reductio to
show that it exists in reality as well. Anselm’s procedure in Proslogion 2 speaks
against the idea that either the reductio form or the general idea related to it
(alternatives B and C) could be identified as the single argument, as Anselm
cannot prove the existence of that than which a greater cannot be thought by
simply applying the reductio technique to the predicate ‘exists’ or ‘exists in re-
ality’. The same criticism does not apply, say, to alternative D, for the first stage
in Anselm’s inference is also based on the force that the signification of the
utterance ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ contains.
Moving on to consider the part of the Proslogion in which Anselm discusses
God’s essence, it was suggested above that the discussion in Proslogion 5–22 be
divided into three parts: chapters 5–14a, chapters 14b–17, and chapters 18–22.
The division is based, on the one hand, on a thematic interconnectedness. On
the other hand, some structural features support the division: each of the three
parts begins with a combination of two elements. First, the person who speaks
in the Proslogion turns to God and asks ‘what are you?’ (quid es?).24 A little
later, Anselm establishes a major claim about God by applying his reductio
23 If ‘God exists’ is a meaningful statement that is necessarily true, someone might infer that
‘God does not exist’ is a meaningful statement that is necessarily false. On the other hand,
if ‘God does not exist’ is nonsensical, someone might infer that ‘God exists’ must also be
nonsensical. Anselm perhaps did not fully appreciate the logical difficulties that his infer-
ence on God’s existence involves.
24 In Proslogion 5, Anselm simply states the question, whereas in Proslogion 14 and 18 there
is a devotional passage related to it. Cf. below.
argument. The question ‘what are you?’ and the use of this argumentative pat-
tern come together in Proslogion 5–22. However, it is not entirely clear whether
this is coincidental or a designed feature of the work.25
The first part of the discussion about the divine essence deals with God as
the creator and his various attributes. This part begins in Proslogion 5 and ends
around the middle of Proslogion 14. Anselm starts Proslogion 5 by asking his
first ‘what are you?’ question and immediately replying to it by using the reduc-
tio argument to establish a complicated general claim about God:
What, then, are you, Lord God, than whom nothing greater can be
thought? But what are you except that which, as highest of all things,
alone existing through itself, made all other things from nothing? For
whatever is not this, is less great than can be thought. But this cannot be
thought about you.26
In the second half of Proslogion 5, Anselm establishes a rule about the attri-
butes of the divine essence that we already are familiar with:
What good, then, is lacking in the supreme good, through which every
good exists? Thus you are just, truthful, blessed, and whatever it is better
to be than not to be. For it is better to be just than not just, blessed than
not blessed.27
On the basis of Responsio 10 (see 2.4), it is clear that Anselm could have proved
each of the attributes of the divine essence using the reductio argument, but
that is not what he is doing here. Instead, he establishes a general rule about
the attributes on the basis of the conclusion that he has established with the
aid of the reductio argument in the first part of the chapter. Because God is
‘that which, as highest of all things, alone existing through itself, made all other
things from nothing’, he can be characterized as ‘the supreme good, through
which every good exists’, and as such no ‘good is lacking’ in him and he is ‘what-
ever it is better to be than not to be’.
In Proslogion 6–11, Anselm addresses problems related to some attributes
that God must have because he is whatever it is better to be than not to be,
25 When reflecting on this, one should take into account the possibility that Anselm may
have composed some major parts of the Proslogion before he discovered the single argu-
ment and that Proslogion 15 may be an addition. See 9.1.
26 Proslogion 5, S I, 104.11–14.
27 Proslogion 5, S I, 104.12–17.
48 Chapter 3
namely, capable of perceiving, omnipotent, merciful, and impassible.28 The

main function of these chapters is to give flesh to the remarks on the theistic
attributes that are presented in an abstract way in Proslogion 5. Anselm ob-
viously picked for treatment a number of attributes regarding which he had
something interesting to say. In the end, Anselm takes the reader back to the
starting point: ‘So, then, you truly are capable of perceiving, omnipotent, mer-
ciful, and impassible, just as you are living, wise, good, blessed, eternal, and
whatever it is better to be than not to be.’29
In Proslogion 12 Anselm establishes a further claim about the attributes of
the divine essence:
But, certainly, whatever you are, you are through none other than your-
self. You are therefore the very life by which you live, the wisdom by
which you are wise, the very goodness by which you are good to the good
and the wicked, and likewise for similar attributes.30
On the basis of Responsio 10 it is, again, clear that Anselm could have proved
any of these conclusions directly with the aid of his reductio argument, for ‘it is
better to be … goodness itself than not goodness itself’. Again, Anselm chooses
a different procedure. And as the argument in the latter part of Proslogion 5 de-
pends on that in the first part of Proslogion 5, so the argument in Proslogion 12
appears to depend on the argument in the first part of Proslogion 5. Because
God is that which ‘alone exist[s] through itself’, he is whatever he is ‘through
none other than’ himself.
At the beginning of Proslogion 13, Anselm establishes two further attributes
of the divine essence:
But all that is in any way confined by place or by time is less great than
that which no law of place or time constrains. Therefore, since nothing is
greater than you, no place or time restricts you, but you are everywhere
and always. And because this can be said of you alone, you alone are un-
limited and eternal.31
Here, the first sentence testifies that we are speaking of predicates to which
Anselm’s reductio can be applied. Strictly speaking, however, Anselm does not
28 Proslogion 6, S I, 104.20–24.
29 Proslogion 11, S I, 110.1–3.
30 Proslogion 12, S I, 110.6–8.
31 Proslogion 13, S I, 110.12–15.
apply his reductio argument here: he does not appeal to the fact that nothing
greater than God can be thought but to the fact that nothing is greater than
God. In a way, this inference can also be said to depend on the argument in the
first part of Proslogion 5: because God is the ‘highest of all things’, nothing is
greater than God.
The first part of Anselm’s discussion about the divine essence ends in the
early part of Proslogion 14, which is strongly devotional. Anselm offers a précis
of the argument so far:
Have you found, my soul, what you were seeking? You were seeking God,
and you found him to be something which is the highest of all, than
which nothing better can be thought, and you found this to be the life
itself, light, wisdom, goodness, eternal blessedness and blessed eternity,
and to exist everywhere and always.32
Starting from these findings, Anselm moves to his next major theme. The strat-
egy of argumentation that Anselm uses in Proslogion 5–13 appears to be the fol-
lowing. He first establishes a general claim about the divine essence with the
aid of his reductio argument (first part of Proslogion 5). He then proves further
claims about the divine essence on the basis of this general claim (latter part
of Proslogion 5 and Proslogion 12–13), even though it would have been possible
to prove these claims directly with the aid of his reductio. In between, there
is a long discussion, Proslogion 6–11, that addresses special issues related to a
number of attributes.
The second part of the discussion about the divine essence, in Proslogion
14–17, deals with divine incomprehensibility and those features of God that
are beyond human understanding. Anselm starts to develop this theme in
Proslogion 14. What bothers the person who speaks in the exercise is why he
cannot sense or feel (sentire) God if what he has found in the course of the ex-
ercise indeed is God. The second ‘what are you?’ question comes in the middle
of Proslogion 14, within a lengthy devotional passage: ‘Lord my God, my maker
and my renewer, tell my desiring soul what else you are other than what it has
seen, so that it may see clearly what it desires.’33 Towards the end of the chapter,
Anselm discusses the overwhelmingness of the divine being when compared
to human intellectual abilities.34 In a short chapter, Proslogion 15, he then ap-
plies his reductio argument to establish a claim related to this: God is not only
32 Proslogion 14, S I, 111.8–11.

33 Proslogion 14, S I, 111.22–24. See 8.5 for further discussion of Proslogion 14.
34 Proslogion 14, S I, 111.24–112.11.
50 Chapter 3
that than which a greater cannot be thought but also something greater than
can be thought.35 The following two chapters deal with some features of the
divine essence that are beyond human understanding. Proslogion 16 explains
what it means that God dwells in ‘the inaccessible light’.36 Proslogion 17 draws
attention to attributes such as fragrance and softness that are present in God
‘in his own ineffable manner’.37
The third part of the discussion about the divine essence, Proslogion 18–
22, revolves around God’s unity. Proslogion 18 begins with a devotional pas-
sage that ends with a series of ‘what are you?’ questions: ‘What are you, Lord?
What are you? What shall my heart understand you to be?’38 The problem that
Anselm wants to address here is how the various things that have been proved
to belong to the divine essence are related to each other. Anselm argues that
there are no parts in God and that he is ‘unity itself’.39 Even though Anselm
does not make the reductio as explicit as in Proslogion 5 and Proslogion 15, it
can be shown that this is also an instance of the same technique (see 2.2).
God’s unity is the central theme in the chapters that follow. Proslogion 19–21
discusses God’s eternity and his relation to space and time,40 and Proslogion 22
accentuates the absolutely unitary nature of his being.41
In the end of Proslogion 22, Anselm rounds up the discussion as follows:
And you are who you are in a proper and unqualified sense, because you
have neither past nor future but only present existence, nor can you be
thought not to be at any time. And you are life and light and wisdom and
blessedness and eternity and many goods of this kind. Nevertheless, you
are only one supreme good, altogether sufficient unto yourself, needing
no one but needed by all for their existence and well-being.42
This is a conclusion not only to the line of thought which begins in Proslogion 18
but also to Anselm’s discussion about the divine essence in general. Anselm
will repeat the last sentence almost word for word in his characterization of
the single argument in the preface: ‘needing no other yet needed by all for
their existence and well-being’. The grounds for the claim were presented in
35 Proslogion 15, S I, 112.14–17.

36 Proslogion 16, S I, 112.20–113.4. See 8.5 for further discussion.
37 Proslogion 17, S I, 113.8–15.
38 Proslogion 18, S I, 113.18–114.14.
39 Proslogion 18, S I, 114.17–24.
40 Proslogion 19–21, S I, 115–16.
41 Proslogion 22, S I, 116–17.
42 Proslogion 22, S I, 116.22–117.2.
Proslogion 5 where the discussion about the divine essence began (see 2.4).
From another point of view, Proslogion 23, which deals with the Trinity, can
also be counted as part of the line of thought that begins in Proslogion 18, as the
emphasis in Proslogion 23 is on the unity in the Trinity.43
In conclusion, Anselm’s argumentation about God in the Proslogion is a
highly contingent application of the single argument. If it is assumed that
the single argument is a means of argumentation (alternatives D, E, and F),
it can be said that the actual introduction of it takes place in the part that
deals with God’s existence (Proslogion 2–4). In the part that deals with God’s
essence (Proslogion 5–22), the argument is used in a very contingent fashion.
Only three passages in this part offer instances of Anselm’s reductio pattern,
in Proslogion 5, 15, and 18, and in 18 the use of the technique is rather implicit.
Anselm clearly could have applied the same technique in several other pas-
sages but he does not. Proslogion 6–11 offers a long treatment of problems re-
lated to a number of theistic attributes, and Proslogion 14, 16, and 18 include
discussions that get their motivation from the devotional exercise in the work
(see also 8.5). It should also be mentioned that no trace of a proof for the iden-
tity of God and that than which a greater cannot be thought can be found
in the part on God’s essence. Except for a fleeting moment in Proslogion 14,44
Anselm takes it for granted that God is that than which a greater cannot be
thought, and even in that passage, the identity is immediately again assumed
without any proof being presented. Establishing ‘whatever we believe about
the divine substance’ was for Anselm an end in itself and nothing in the text of
the Proslogion suggests that he would have wished to build an identity proof
on this basis.
3.3 That Than Which a Greater Cannot Be Thought and God
One major point of disagreement in the interpretation of the Proslogion con-

cerns the question about how we should understand the relation between
‘God’ and ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’. The discussion about
the topic has largely revolved around two alternative views. On the one hand is
the conventional understanding according to which Anselm’s argument starts
from a ‘definition’ of God. On the other hand is the fideistic tradition of inter-
pretation going back to Karl Barth according to which Anselm’s argument in
the Proslogion starts from a revealed ‘name’ of God. In this understanding, it
43 Proslogion 23, S I, 117.

44 Proslogion 14, S I, 111.11–15. See also 8.5.
52 Chapter 3
is an article of faith that God is that than which a greater cannot be thought
(see also 3.1). These views are related to two opposed understandings of what
Anselm’s argumentation in the Proslogion aims at. The conventional under-
standing is that Anselm wanted to produce arguments that will convince any
rational person about the validity of some claims. Barth’s fideistic interpreta-
tion, by contrast, maintains that Anselm addresses Christian believers only
and strives to elucidate the internal consistency of the Christian doctrine by
using one article of faith to deduce other articles of faith from it.45
Barth’s fideistic interpretation of the Proslogion is in many ways far removed
from the conventional understanding of the treatise. In some respects, how-
ever, the two interpretations are markedly similar. They approach the ques-
tion about the relation between ‘God’ and ‘that than which a greater cannot
be thought’ in a rather similar way. Both interpretations maintain that there
is a necessary relation between these notions; what they disagree about is the
kind of necessity involved. To put it differently, both interpretations maintain
that the sentence ‘God is that than which a greater cannot be thought’ has an
axiomatic status, but they disagree about the grounds for why this is the case.
Consequently, the two interpretations should, in principle, be able to arrive
at a common understanding about the structure of Anselm’s argumentation
in the Proslogion. Even if the nature of the axiom is interpreted differently,
this need not affect the way in which other claims are deduced from it. In the
controversy between the proponents of the conventional understanding and
the Barthian understanding, the initial evaluation of the sentence ‘God is that
than which a greater cannot be thought’ is taken to have a crucial importance.
If it expresses a conceptual truth, the whole enterprise will have a philosophi-
cal character. If it expresses an article of faith, the whole enterprise will be said
to be internal to faith.
Neither the conventional view nor the Barthian view about the relation
between ‘God’ and ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ can appeal
to solid evidence. The conventional interpretation can produce some rather
strong grounds for the claim that Anselm’s argument in the Proslogion must
have a rational starting point, but the evidence speaks against the idea that
Anselm would have taken ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’
to be a definition of ‘God’. Anselm presents a nominal definition of God
in Monologion 80, but it is a different one,46 and he obviously held that no
real definition of God is possible.47 The Barthian interpretation, for its part,
45 See Barth, Anselm: Fides Quaerens Intellectum.

46 Monologion 80, S I, 86.20–22.
47 Anselm maintains that God is ‘something greater than can be thought’ (Proslogion 15).
can appeal to two passages in which it is implied that God’s being that than
which a greater cannot be thought is part of what the Christians believe.48
However, these passages do not have much weight as arguments for the idea
that Anselm’s enterprise would be purely fideistic. In addition, one might as-
sume that only claims that are included in central Christian teaching can be
called articles of faith. The sentence ‘God is that than which a greater cannot
be thought’ was not part of central Christian teaching before Anselm.49
The attempt to solve the difficulty by claiming that Anselm sought to pro-
duce evidence for the identification of that than which a greater cannot be
thought as God by proving that it has the attributes that the divine essence is
believed to have is not successful. There is no hint in the part of the Proslogion
where Anselm discusses God’s essence that he aims at justifying that that than
which a greater cannot be thought is God (see 3.2), and there is no hint in the
Responsio that Anselm had entertained the idea of presenting such a proof of
identity.
To clarify the relation between ‘God’ and ‘that than which a greater cannot
be thought’ in the context of Anselm’s argument, I first take up some general
points and then present remarks about how we should understand Anselm’s
actual procedure in the Proslogion. In the end, I suggest that it can perhaps be
said that the sentence ‘God is that than which a greater cannot be thought’ will
acquire an axiomatic status as a result of the Proslogion.
In the debates about the Proslogion, scholars have usually found it impor-
tant that that than which a greater cannot be thought is identified as God.
Many commentators appear to assume that Anselm’s argument is deficient
and incomplete if this identification is not made.50 However, it seems that
the concern about the matter often arises from the common misunderstand-
ings about what Anselm’s argument consists of and aims at. If it were the
case that Anselm’s argument is a proof for God’s existence that he presents in
Proslogion 2 or 2–3, then the concern about the identification would indeed
48 Proslogion 2, S I, 101.4–5. Responsio 1, S I, 130.12–16.

49 The notion ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ is anticipated in both Christian
and non-Christian philosophical sources. In the apparatus to Proslogion 2 in S I, 102,
F. S. Schmitt references, among other works, the following: Augustine, Confessiones
VII, 4, 6; Augustine, De doctrina christiana I, 7, 7; Seneca, Naturales quaestiones I, Pref.,
13. For a recent survey, see John A. Demetracopoulos, ‘The Stoic Background to the
Universality of Anselm’s Definition of “God” in Proslogion 2’, in Alessandro Musco et al.
(eds.), Universalità della Ragione. Pluralità delle Filosofie nel Medioevo (Palermo: Officina
di Studi Medievali, 2012), vol. II.1, 121–38. The idea of God as the most excellent being was
widely shared, whereas the exact formula ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’
was rarely approached.
50 See note 11 in 3.1.
54 Chapter 3
be well-founded. A proof for the existence of something hardly qualifies as a

proof for God’s existence unless there are proper grounds for believing that
this something is God. As Anselm does not present any formal argument for
the identity in question, postulating that the starting point is an axiom appears
as a reasonable alternative.
As a matter of fact, the burden of the single argument is to make it pos-
sible to prove not only God’s existence but also whatever the Christians believe
about the divine essence. Further, there is reason to believe that the single ar-
gument is not a piece of argumentation but a means of argumentation. These
features of the single argument transform the issue about the relation between
‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ and ‘God’, when compared to the
popular misunderstanding of what ‘Anselm’s argument’ is.
Anselm’s single argument is a means of argumentation that can be used
for constructing various pieces of argumentation, and these can be used for
constructing texts of various kinds. The actual text of the Proslogion is one
contingent application of the single argument, and it is contingent in several
ways (see 3.2). There is an indefinite number of other possible applications
of the single argument. For example, Anselm could have composed another
monologion based on the single argument. In the main bulk of the Monologion
that he did write, Anselm does not use the word ‘God’ or any of its derivatives
(like ‘divine’), and he nevertheless succeeds in reconstructing to his satisfac-
tion a number of the main tenets of the Christian view of reality (see 2.3). In
the same way, Anselm could apply the single argument without using the word
‘God’ or its derivatives. Using Anselm’s reductio technique, it should be easy
to show that there exists a being that is the sole creator of everything else (cf.
Proslogion 5); it is wise, good, just, omnipotent, and so forth (cf. Proslogion 5
and Responsio 10); it is greater than can be thought (cf. Proslogion 15); and so
on. The proofs are based on the ‘force’ that the signification of the utterance
‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ contains; all that is needed
is that ‘it is understood or thought of’ (Responsio 10). The identification of that
than which a greater cannot be thought as God has nothing to contribute here.
It also makes no difference what the origin or background of the notion ‘that
than which a greater cannot be thought’ is. The signification of the notion it-
self contains the force that makes the presenting of the proofs possible.
Where does the identification of that than which a greater cannot be
thought as God come in? First, the identification is needed when one de-
scribes the argument or the proof. The purpose of the single argument is to
make it possible to establish a number of claims about God, and one needs to
use the word ‘God’ to express this. This applies to the description of the single
argument that Anselm offers in the preface. Second, some applications of the
single argument can be such that it is meaningful or even necessary to identify

the entity discussed as the God of the Christian faith at the outset. This is true
of the application in the Proslogion, where the entity that is discussed is also an
entity that is addressed in prayer.
Does the identification need to be supported by evidence? Obviously, that
depends on the type of application and the audience that is addressed. In many
contexts, there is no need for presenting evidence. If it is proved that there ex-
ists exactly one being that is the creator of everything else and has the kinds of
attributes that the Christians believe the divine essence to have, it should be
obvious to most audiences that the being in question is God. However, if one
uses the single argument only to prove some particular claim about God (say,
that God exists), it would seem that some evidence is called for.
In what way would it be possible to prove that that than which a greater can-
not be thought is the God of the Christians? It depends on the kind of audience.
For an audience of educated Christian believers, not much argument is need-
ed. For example, the identity proof might be based on the claims that that than
which a greater cannot be thought (1) exists and (2) has some attribute that is
a distinctive characteristic of God, that is, a characteristic which is believed to
apply to God alone. If Anselm were addressing well-disposed unbelievers who
have some familiarity with the content of the Christian faith, a little more is re-
quired. The identity proof could be based on the claims that that than which a
greater cannot be thought (1) exists, (2) is the only being of its kind, and (3) has
some attribute that is a distinctive characteristic of God. As for stubborn un-
believers, no proof based on the single argument will force them to concede
the identity in question. Let us suppose that they admit that that than which
a greater cannot be thought exists, is the only being of its kind, and has all the
properties that the Christians believe the divine essence to have. They can still
reasonably deny that this being is the God of the Christians, as they can keep
on denying that the God of the Christians exists and claim that the Supreme
Being, the existence of which they admit because of the argument presented,
is a different entity. They can reasonably say this because some central features
in the Christian idea of God cannot be proved with the aid of the single argu-
ment (for example, the Trinity and the Incarnation).
In general, the question about the identification of that than which a great-
er cannot be thought as God is not particularly important for Anselm’s strategy
of argumentation. Anselm need not see a problem in the identification when
talking to his actual audience, devout Christian believers, because he need not
say much to make it obvious that that than which a greater cannot be thought is
God. The identification should not cause a problem in the possible apologetic
applications either, if one does not expect too much from Anselm’s argument.
56 Chapter 3
The burden and aim of Anselm’s argument is to prove God’s existence and to
prove all those claims that the Christians believe to be true of the divine es-
sence. In an apologetic context, this aim is achieved if it is shown that there
exists a being that has all the properties that the divine essence is believed to
have. One need not identify this being as ‘God’. The identification becomes rel-
evant if one wants to establish some further claims about the same being, but
then one is moving beyond the scope of the single argument.
In the actual text of the Proslogion, Anselm first introduces the idea that
God is something than which a greater cannot be thought by saying that ‘we
believe’ (credimus) God to be such.51 Here, the use of the expression ‘we be-
lieve’ need not imply that the idea introduced would have been a well-known
tenet of Christianity (even though Anselm perhaps wanted the audience to
take it in this way). It may be that the very first audience of the Proslogion at
the monastery of Bec was familiar with the notion ‘that than which a great-
er cannot be thought’ because it is possible that Anselm had already made
oral use of it, but in the tradition preceding Anselm, the notion appears only
rarely.52 Anselm can use the expression ‘we believe’ because the idea that he
introduces has a Christian appearance and it will soon turn out that it highly
coheres with the traditional teaching about God. In addition, Anselm needed
to introduce the notion ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ in one
way or another, and he needed to do it smoothly.
Anselm’s strategy in the Proslogion is not to problematize the relation be-
tween ‘God’ and ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’. In the first in-
troduction of the idea, he may be stretching the truth when he creates the
impression that the reader should already be familiar with the notion ‘that
than which a greater cannot be thought’ and have a positive attitude to it. In
the three-stage argument for God’s existence, Anselm refers to the thing that
he talks about as ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’. When it is again
identified as God, in the middle of Proslogion 3, this is a matter of course. If
some readers should have doubts, on closer inspection they could find that in
Proslogion 3, Anselm has established that that than which a greater cannot be
thought has a distinctive characteristic of God: all other beings except for God
can be thought not to exist.53 In the latter part of Proslogion 3, there is even an
implicit argument for the identification of God and that than which a greater
52 See note 49 above.
53 In the Responsio, Anselm explicitly states that ‘not being able to be thought not to exist’
is a distinctive characteristic of God. Responsio 4, S I, 134.16–17: ‘Sic igitur et proprium est
deo non posse cogitari non esse, …’
cannot be thought on this basis.54 If the reader still entertains doubts, they
should disappear in Proslogion 5 at the latest: Anselm argues there that God or
that than which a greater cannot be thought is the sole creator of everything
else (and consequently the only being of its kind). As already stated, however,
there is no argument for the identity of God and that than which a greater
cannot be thought either here or later in the Proslogion. The notion ‘that than
which a greater cannot be thought’ surfaces in a few passages, and in them it is
used as an epithet of God.
In the above discussion, the idea that Anselm would seek to prove that
that than which a greater cannot be thought is God was rejected as incorrect.
On the other hand, it was argued that the sentence ‘God is that than which a
greater cannot be thought’ does not have an axiomatic status in the sense that
its truth would already be beyond dispute at the outset. Nevertheless, it can
perhaps be said that this sentence will acquire an axiomatic status as a result
of the Proslogion. Let me explain how.
Anselm’s argument would not be possible if it were not the case that the
predications about God can be systematized in a certain way: God is whatever
it is better to be than not to be. This systematization is closely dependent on
both faith and reason. The Christian faith teaches many claims about God, for
example, that he is good, that he is wise, that he is just, that he is goodness
itself, and so on. It is these accepted claims that the systematization presented
by Anselm tries to capture, and they can be seen as the starting point for it.55
However, reason evidently has an indispensable role in forming the systemati-
zation. Anselm maintains that the ability to make correct value judgements
belongs to the essence of rationality.56 In Monologion 15, he takes it for granted
that reason has the capability of discerning the predicates which are great-
making from predicates which are not. The direction of Anselm’s argument
in that chapter is from a distinction between different kinds of predicates to
a statement about what is predicated ‘substantially’ about the Supreme Being
(see 2.3). In the background, apparently, there is an inverse inference that
can be characterized as inductive. When believers consider the traditional
54 Hence, commentators like Stolz, McGill and Campbell are not entirely wrong. See note 18
in 3.2. However, the implicitness of the argument needs to be accentuated.
55 There are passages in both Christian and non-Christian sources that imply a similar
systematization. It would appear, as far as the Christian tradition is concerned, that the
individual predications about God ought to be primary and the systematization should
be seen as derivative. The situation may actually be more complex: the systematization
affects what is predicated of God and the actual predications about God affect what is
considered great-making.
56 Monologion 68, S I, 78.21–23. See also 2.3.
58 Chapter 3
predications about God with the aid of their reason, they should observe a
certain pattern: the predicates that hold true of God are great-making. The sys-
tematization of the predications about God depends on reason in that it is
based on the reason’s ability to recognize the great-making predicates.
There is a close connection between the systematization of the predications
about God and the identification of God as that than which a greater cannot
be thought. Because of the systematization, it is possible to use a simple reduc-
tio argument to show that that than which a greater cannot be thought must
have each and every one of the predicates that the divine essence is believed
to have. In a way, the identification of God as that than which a greater cannot
be thought encapsulates the systematization and makes it redundant: in the
foreground is the utterance ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ and
the force that its signification contains, and the systematization of the predica-
tions is background information. When the believers reflect about ‘that than
which a greater cannot be thought’ in relation to their Christian understanding
of God, they will soon start to perceive the sentence ‘God is that than which
a greater cannot be thought’ as a fundamental basic truth. This truth is inti-
mately connected to their faith: it encapsulates what they believe about the
divine essence. At the same time, the truth is rational insofar as it is based on
the reason’s ability to make correct value judgements. It can also be character-
ized as conceptual: ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ recommends
itself as a possible explication of what ‘God’ signifies. In this way, the sentence
‘God is that than which a greater cannot be thought’ will acquire an axiomatic
status as a result of the Proslogion, and it will be both ‘an article of faith’ and ‘a
conceptual truth’ for someone who shares Anselm’s assumptions about reason
and God.
3.4 The Argument That Proves Itself
At the beginning of this chapter, six main alternatives for the single argument
were listed (A to F). In what follows, I make a case for choosing alternative D:
the single argument is the notion ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’.
The case is based on a synchronized reading of three important passages in
which Anselm comments on the single argument: the preface to the Proslogion,
Responsio 10, and Responsio 5. These passages jointly support the idea that
‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ is the single argument, and they
jointly make it difficult for any of the other alternatives to qualify as the single
argument.
Anselm’s description of the single argument in the preface to the Proslogion
is the only legitimate starting point for the identification of the single argument
because it is the only passage which quite explicitly speaks of the argument
in question. The passage places two requirements on the single argument:
(1) it will ‘need no other [argument] for proving itself than itself alone’, and
(2) it will ‘suffice by itself’ to establish a number of claims about God, includ-
ing God’s existence and ‘whatever we believe about the divine substance’.57
Responsio 10 is related to the latter requirement: it explains how and why the
single argument will ‘suffice by itself’ to establish some claims. Responsio 5 is
related to the former requirement: it explains how the single argument will
‘need no other [argument] for proving itself than itself alone’.
The passage in the preface and Responsio 10 comment on what is factually
the same argument, but it is described from different points of view. In the
preface, Anselm describes the burden and task of the single argument, but
he does not provide any hint about what the argument is. In Responsio 10, by
contrast, Anselm does not indicate what the task of the single argument is,
but he explains how the single argument functions and how it can fulfil its
task. Because the task of the single argument is to prove some things about
God, Anselm needs to use the word ‘God’ in the description in the preface.
At the same time, the word ‘God’ is not required in the explanation given in
Responsio 10, because the functioning of the single argument as such does not
depend on the identification of that than which a greater cannot be thought
as God (see 3.3).
Responsio 10 makes it clear that ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’
meets one of the two requirements expressed for the single argument in the
preface: this notion ‘suffices by itself’ to prove the things that the single argu-
ment should be able to prove. Nothing else than the force that the significa-
tion of the utterance ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ contains
is needed for the required claims to be proved of that than which a greater
cannot be thought, and this is produced ‘by the mere fact that it is understood
or thought of’.58 At the same time, the passage serves as evidence against the
other alternatives listed. Because Responsio 10 obviously aims at clarifying
what the single argument is about, it is reasonable to expect that Anselm will
there mention the entity that is the single argument. The only other alternative
that is present in Responsio 10 is the general argumentative idea (C). However,
the general idea merely appears in the passage, whereas there is positive evi-
dence for the identification of ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’
as the single argument insofar as Anselm indicates that it ‘suffices by itself’ to
prove the things that the single argument should prove.

58 Responsio 10, S I, 138.30–139.8.
60 Chapter 3
The requirement that the single argument will ‘need no other [argument]
for proving itself than itself alone’ has received only limited attention in the
debates about the interpretation of the Proslogion. It appears that many schol-
ars do not see this as a separate requirement; instead, it is taken to mean the
same thing as the clause ‘suffice[s] by itself’ in the description of the burden
and task of the argument. However, there is no reason to think that this is the
case. The requirement includes two parts: the argument needs no other argu-
ment for proving itself, and it itself can be used for proving itself. The first part
can perhaps be equated with the ‘suffice[s] by itself’ clause, but the second
part certainly includes a separate condition. Anselm’s description of the single
argument includes the idea that the single argument can be used for prov-
ing itself. This sounds odd, but it is nevertheless part of the central evidence.
Further, we are entitled to believe that the requirement is related to some cen-
tral feature in the functioning of the single argument, for otherwise Anselm
would not have included it in the brief description of the single argument.
There is no obvious answer to how a comprehensive piece of argumenta-
tion (A) or a form of argument (B) could prove itself. As for the general argu-
mentative idea (C) or a definition (E) or a sentence (F), it could be suggested
that the requirement about ‘proving itself’ means that Anselm intends to prove
that that than which a greater cannot be thought is God. This is a sensible
suggestion, but it does not meet with the facts. There is no indication in the
Proslogion that Anselm entertained the idea of presenting such a proof.
As for the view that the notion ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’
is the single argument, there is a way in which the requirement about ‘proving
itself’ can be connected to Anselm’s reductio argument. This idea comes up in
the other passage of the Responsio that comments on the description of the
single argument in the preface: Responsio 5. It also includes other features that
support the identification of ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ as
the single argument. For one thing, Anselm there explicitly uses the term ‘ar-
gument’ (argumentum) for entities like ‘that than which a greater cannot be
thought’ and ‘(that which is) greater than all (else)’ (maius omnibus).59 What is
more, it turns out that the purpose of Responsio 5 is to point out the difference
between an argument/notion that needs some other argument for its support
and an argument/notion that needs no other argument than itself alone for
proving itself. The notion ‘(that which is) greater than all (else)’ is an example
of the former type, whereas the notion ‘that than which a greater cannot be
thought’ represents the latter type.
59 Responsio 5, S I, 135.18–26.
In Responsio 5, Anselm rebukes Gaunilo for misrepresenting his argument.

In his paraphrases of Anselm’s argumentation in Proslogion 2, Gaunilo had
repeatedly used the notion ‘greater than all’ (maius omnibus) instead of the
notion ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’. In Anselm’s view, this
substitution makes the argumentation entirely different:
[Y]ou often repeat that I say that that which is greater than all is in the
understanding, and if it is in the understanding, it also exists in reality, for
otherwise the greater than all would not be greater than all. Such a proof
cannot be found anywhere in what I have written. For ‘greater than all’
and ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ are not equally effec-
tive when it comes to proving the real existence of what is said.60
Here Anselm claims that there is an important difference between the notions
‘greater than all’ and ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’, when it
comes to proving the existence of the thing. The difference, as will become ap-
parent, is that one needs another argument for its support, whereas the other
does not.
Anselm begins by considering, once again, the notion ‘that than which a
greater cannot be thought’. If someone should claim that that than which a
greater cannot be thought does not exist, or that it is able not to exist, or that
it can be thought not to exist, this person can be easily refuted. Anselm thinks
that the three claims are connected to each other in such a way that proving
the last point is enough. This can be done by using the reductio argument often
cited above: if that than which a greater cannot be thought can be thought
not to exist, it is not what it is said to be (which is, of course, impossible).61
However, Anselm claims, it seems that you cannot use such a simple proof in
the case of greater than all. If someone says that the greater than all can be
thought not to exist, you are not entitled straightaway to infer that it is not
greater than all. Anselm argues that ‘greater than all’ cannot be used as an ar-
gument to back itself up but needs another argument for its support:
60 Responsio 5, S I, 134.24–28. For my earlier attempts to interpret Responsio 5, see Holopainen,

Dialectic and Theology, 143–45, and Holopainen, ‘Anselm’s Argumentum’, 25–29. It should
be noted that I here present my case for identifying ‘that than which a greater cannot
be thought’ as the single argument before discussing the Boethian theory of argument
(see 4.2). This is to make it clear that the identification of the single argument does not
depend on the Boethian ideas and particular interpretations of them. See also Müller,
‘Ontologischer Gottesbeweis?’ 38–45.
61 Responsio 5, S I, 134.29–135.7.
62 Chapter 3
However, it seems that it is not as easy to prove this about what is called
‘greater than all’. … For what if someone should say that something is
greater than all existing things but that it can nevertheless be thought not
to exist, and that something greater than it can be thought, even if this
does not exist? Would it in this case be possible to infer that it obviously
is not greater than all existing things, as in the other case it would quite
obviously be declared that it is not that than which a greater cannot be
thought? The former inference stands in need of another argument (alio
indiget argumento) in addition to what is called ‘greater than all’, but in
the latter no other [argument] is needed (non est opus alio) than the one
that resounds, ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’.62
Consequently, Anselm claims that Gaunilo’s critique is misplaced. If the cri-

tique is at all valid, it applies to Gaunilo’s version but does not apply to Anselm’s:
Therefore, if what ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ proves

about itself by means of itself (de se per seipsum probat) cannot be proved
in the same way about what is called ‘greater than all’, you have criticized
me unfairly, of having said what I did not say, since it differs so much from
what I did say.63
However, Anselm thinks that Gaunilo’s version can also be saved, and this can
be done by using the notion ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ as
an argument:
On the other hand, if it can [be proved] by means of another argument

(post aliud argumentum potest), you should not have criticized me so
much, of having said what can be proved. But whether it can [be proved],
is easily judged by one who recognizes that that than which a greater
cannot be thought is able to do it. For that than which a greater cannot
be thought can only be understood to be that which alone is greater than
62 Responsio 5, S I, 135.8–20: ‘Hoc autem non tam facile probari posse videtur de eo quod
maius dicitur omnibus. … Quid enim si quis dicat esse aliquid maius omnibus quae sunt,
et idipsum tamen posse cogitari non esse, et aliquid maius eo etiam si non sit, posse
tamen cogitari? An hic sic aperte inferri potest: non est ergo maius omnibus quae sunt,
sicut ibi apertissime diceretur: ergo non est quo maius cogitari nequit? Illud namque alio
indiget argumento quam hoc quod dicitur “omnibus maius”; in isto vero non est opus alio
quam hoc ipso quod sonat “quo maius cogitari non possit”.’
63 Responsio 5, S I, 135.20–23: ‘Ergo si non similiter potest probari de eo quod “maius om-
nibus” dicitur, quod de se per seipsum probat “quo maius nequit cogitari”: iniuste me
reprehendisti dixisse quod non dixi, cum tantum differat ab eo quod dixi.’
all. Therefore, as that than which a greater cannot be thought is under-

stood and is in the understanding, and is consequently affirmed to exist
in reality, so what is said to be greater than all is necessarily inferred to
be understood and to be in the understanding, and therefore to exist in
reality.64
In this passage, Anselm suggests that ‘that than which a greater cannot be
thought’ can be used as an argument to prove that the greater than all exists in
reality. Using the reductio technique, it is easy to prove that that than which a
greater cannot be thought is the greater than all, and therefore the conclusions
which apply to the former also apply to the latter.65
The discussion in Responsio 5 is of critical importance for the identification
of Anselm’s single argument. First, the passage makes it clear that Anselm is
willing to apply the term ‘argument’ (argumentum) to entities like ‘that than
which a greater cannot be thought’ or ‘greater than all’. This is a way of using
the word ‘argument’ that we are not accustomed to, but we can certainly make
sense of it. As Anselm says in Responsio 10, his strategy of argumentation is
based on the force that the signification of the utterance ‘that than which a
greater cannot be thought’ contains, and all that is required is that ‘it is un-
derstood or thought of’. The argument is that which convinces one of some-
thing, and in this case what should convince one is the notion ‘that than which
a greater cannot be thought’. Second, even though Anselm does not use the
exact formulation in Responsio 5 that he used in the preface, it is clear that
here he comments on what it means that the single argument ‘would need
no other [argument] for proving itself than itself alone’. Anselm argues that
‘greater than all’ will need an argument different from itself in order that some
claims about it can be proved, whereas ‘that than which a greater cannot be
thought’ needs no other argument than itself in order that the same claims
64 Responsio 5, S I, 135, 24–31: ‘Si vero vel post aliud argumentum potest, nec sic me debuisti
reprehendere dixisse quod probari potest. Utrum autem possit, facile perpendit, qui hoc
posse “quo maius cogitari nequit” cognoscit. Nullatenus enim potest intelligi “quo maius
cogitari non possit” nisi id quod solum omnibus est maius. Sicut ergo “quo maius cogi-
tari nequit” intelligitur et est in intellectu, et ideo esse in rei veritate asseritur: sic quod
maius dicitur omnibus, intelligi et esse in intellectu, et idcirco re ipsa esse ex necessitate
concluditur.’
65 Anselm’s analysis of the situation is not satisfactory. True enough, if it can be proved that
(the thing called) ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ cannot be any other than
(the thing called) ‘greater than all’, it generally follows that what applies to the former
also applies to the latter. However, such an inference need not be valid in intensional con-
texts. For example, if someone understands (the phrase or the notion) ‘that than which
a greater cannot be thought’, it does not follow that he must therefore understand (the
phrase or the notion) ‘greater than all’.
64 Chapter 3
can be proved about it. The way in which ‘that than which a greater cannot be
thought’ can be used for proving claims about itself is, of course, Anselm’s re-
ductio technique: you can prove claims about that than which a greater cannot
be thought by appealing to the signification of the expression ‘that than which
a greater cannot be thought’. This is what Anselm’s statement in the preface
that the single argument ‘would need no other [argument] for proving itself
than itself alone’ strives to convey. The statement is opaque, but that could
hardly be avoided, given that Anselm wanted to be brief and found it better not
to disclose yet what the single argument actually was. In Responsio 5, he makes
the issue a bit clearer. Third, Responsio 5 not only elucidates what the require-
ment in the preface means, but it also makes it clear that ‘that than which a
greater cannot be thought’ is an argument that ‘need[s] no other [argument]
for proving itself than itself alone’.
Before concluding, it may be noted that the way we identify the single ar-
gument affects the way we are to interpret Anselm’s remark in the preface to
the Proslogion about the ‘many arguments’ in the Monologion (see also 2.4).
It should be possible to interpret the word ‘argument’ in the same manner in
these two instances, for the impression is that Anselm wants to replace ‘many
arguments’ with ‘one argument’.66 Hence, when ‘that than which a greater can-
not be thought’ is taken to be the single argument, the many arguments in the
Monologion should be taken to be some entities of a similar kind. The complex
manner in which Anselm formulates the remark about the ‘many arguments’
fits well with such an idea: ‘it was an interconnected chain of many arguments’,
or, more literally, ‘it was woven together (contextum) by a chaining together
(concatenatione) of many arguments (multa argumenta)’.67 The ‘many argu-
ments’ here need not be ‘pieces’ of argumentation but they can be any kind of
‘means’ of argumentation instead. The remark is certainly compatible with the
identification of the single argument here proposed.
Overall, Responsio 5 and Responsio 10 jointly offer sufficient evidence for
declaring that ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ is the entity that
Anselm had in mind when he composed the description of the ‘single argu-
ment’ in the preface to the Proslogion. To achieve a deeper understanding of
these issues, we next turn to the early medieval art of dialectic and its theory
of argument.
66 This is not to say that the word argumentum should always be taken to have the same
meaning in Anselm’s works. See 4.3.
67 Proslogion, preface, S I, 93.4–5: ‘… considerans illud esse multorum concatenatione con-
textum argumentorum, …’
Chapter 4
The Argument and Dialectic
4.1 The Importance of Dialectic
Berengar of Tours (c. 1005–88), an elder contemporary of Anselm of Canterbury,

praises the art of dialectic in a writing that antedates the Proslogion by a de-
cade or so with the following words:
It is clearly the property of a great heart to have recourse to dialectic in all

things, because to have recourse to dialectic is to have recourse to reason;
and he who refuses this recourse, since it is in reason that he is made in
the image of God, abandons his glory, and cannot be renewed from day
to day in the image of God.1
Berengar also says other things to justify his use of dialectical notions and
principles in a discussion concerning the Eucharistic doctrine. For example,
he cites passages from Augustine’s works eulogizing the art of dialectic and
reason.2 Anselm would never make such a bold statement but he, nevertheless,
basically shares Berengar’s reliance on the power of dialectic and reason. This
is not due to some historical influence between the two, even though there are
reasons for thinking that Anselm knew some of Berengar’s earlier writings (see
5.3). The central position of dialectic is an essential and distinctive feature of
the intellectual culture in the latter period of the early Middle Ages. Some of
the best minds in the eleventh century, from Gerbert of Aurillac (died 1002) to
Peter Abelard (born 1079), spent major parts of their lives studying dialectic.3
This chapter deals with some aspects of early medieval dialectic with a twofold
aim: to give an idea of the significance of dialectic for Anselm’s thought and for
1 Berengar of Tours, Rescriptum contra Lanfrannum I, ed. R. B. C. Huygens, Corpus

Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis 84 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1988), 85, lines 1795–99.
2 Berengar, Rescriptum I, ed. Huygens, 85–86, lines 1780–88 and 1799–824. See also
Toivo J. Holopainen, Dialectic and Theology in the Eleventh Century (Leiden: Brill, 1996),
115–18.
3 For dialectic in the tenth and eleventh centuries, see John Marenbon, ‘Logic before 1100: The
Latin Tradition’, in Dov M. Gabbay and John Woods (eds.), Handbook of the History of Logic,
vol. 2: Mediaeval and Renaissance Logic (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2008), 1–63, at 38–57; Osmund
Lewry, ‘Boethian Logic in the Medieval West’, in Margaret Gibson (ed.), Boethius: His Life,
Thought and Influence (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981), 90–134, at 90–108.

66 Chapter 4
eleventh-century theology, and to elucidate Anselm’s remarks concerning the

single argument.
From Gerbert to Abelard, the sources used in the advanced study of dialec-
tic remained basically the same. The majority of these sources can be charac-
terized as Boethian, for they derive from the pen of Boethius (c. 476–526), a
learned Roman nobleman. Altogether fourteen Boethian works were used as
sources for dialectic in the eleventh century. Three of them are Greek works
translated into Latin by Boethius: Aristotle’s Categories and De interpretatione
as well as Porphyry’s Isagoge. Six are commentaries: one on Categories, two on
De interpretatione, two on Isagoge, and one on Cicero’s Topics. The remaining
five are textbooks on various areas of dialectic: three on syllogistics, one on
topics, and one on division. Many of these works are fairly extensive, and their
quality is, generally speaking, quite good. The availability of these Boethian
sources was a prerequisite for the flourishing of dialectic in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries.4
To be able to appreciate the notable position of dialectic in the intellectual
life of the closing period of the early Middle Ages, it should be pointed out,
to begin with, that dialectic included various kinds of tools, techniques, and
doctrines to help those trained in the art to make better use of their reason.
Dialectic in its early medieval form is primarily an art of argumentation, but
it also includes other features. Among other things, it contains an outline of a
metaphysical theory that can apparently serve as the foundation for discussing
any theoretical issue.
The most notable of those parts of dialectic that deal with argumentation
is syllogistics, which is divided into two branches: categorical syllogistics and
hypothetical syllogistics. A categorical syllogism is the kind of inference that
modern readers usually understand by the word ‘syllogism’. This branch of syl-
logistics goes back to Aristotle, but Anselm’s contemporaries studied it from
the textbooks by Boethius: De syllogismo categorico and Introductio ad syllogis-
mos categoricos. For example, the following is a categorical syllogism:
Every man is an animal

Every animal is a substance
Therefore, every man is a substance.
4 For Boethius and his influence on early medieval thought, especially logic, see John Marenbon,
Boethius (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003); John Marenbon (ed.), The Cambridge
Companion to Boethius (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Marenbon, ‘Logic
before 1100’; Lewry, ‘Boethian Logic’, 90–108.
The Argument and Dialectic 67
In a hypothetical syllogism, at least one of the premises is a compound sen-

tence. Hypothetical syllogistics goes back to ancient propositional logic first
developed by the Stoics. Recent studies have shown that Boethius’s treat-
ment of these kinds of inferences, in De hypotheticis syllogismis, is hopelessly
garbled.5 Nevertheless, it provided material to reflect upon for dialecticians in
the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The categorical and hypothetical syllogis-
tics were understood as tools for judging the validity of inferences. Boethius
aimed at offering a complete list of those inference forms that are valid, and at
demonstrating their validity.
Among the parts of dialectic that deal with argumentation there is also
counted one called ‘topics’, which Boethius treats in his commentary on
Cicero’s Topics and in the textbook De topiciis differentiis. Topics is primarily a
heuristic technique for uncovering arguments, but it can also serve as a means
of confirming arguments. While syllogistics is focused on the validity of the
inference form, topics is focused on discovering and confirming the premises
in the inference. It is based on the idea that there are self-evident universal
propositions, called maximal propositions, which can be used for proving
other propositions. The treatment of topics would begin with a discussion of
general issues in the theory of argument. There is a closer look at the Boethian
theory of argument in the following section (4.2).
Syllogisms are made of sentences, and sentences consist of terms. A com-
prehensive basic course in dialectic would begin with two doctrines related
to terms, based on Porphyry’s Isagoge and Aristotle’s Categories, and then
move on to discussing sentences based on Aristotle’s De interpretatione and
Boethius’s commentaries and textbooks. The formal ground for this order was
that sentences consist of terms. In fact, the doctrines in question, that is to
say, the doctrines of predicables and categories, are of little significance for
the treatment of sentences. Nevertheless, these doctrines are highly significant
for all medieval philosophical thought because of the metaphysical ideas they
contain.
The doctrine of predicables can be viewed as a classification of different
kinds of predicates that can be correctly ascribed to the subject. According to
the Porphyrian account in the Isagoge, there are five predicables: the predi-
cate is either the species (for example, ‘Plato is a man’) or a genus (‘A man is
an animal’) or a differentia (‘A man is rational’) or a distinctive characteristic
(proprium, ‘A man is capable of laughing’) or an accident (‘A man is white’).
The doctrine of categories, for its part, appears to be a classification of simple
5 See Christopher J. Martin, ‘The Logic of Negation in Boethius’, Phronesis 36 (1991), 277–304;
Marenbon, ‘Logic before 1100’, 15–18.
68 Chapter 4
expressions according to the types of entities that they signify. There are ten
categories, but Aristotle mainly concentrates on the first four in the Categories:
substance (for example, ‘man’, ‘horse’), quantity (‘two cubits long’), quality
(‘white’, ‘grammatical’), and relation (‘double’, ‘greater’). Despite the unpromis-
ing appearance, the doctrines of predicables and categories jointly embrace
a metaphysical theory, the basic ingredients of which include a distinction
between essential and accidental features of things and an account of an es-
sential hierarchical structure in being (the so-called ‘Porphyrian tree’). The
traditional theory of definition is based on the doctrine of predicables: the def-
inition consists of a genus and one or more differentiae, for example, a ‘man’ is
a ‘rational mortal animal’. Many of the maximal propositions in topics concern
the relations between the different predicables.
Some factors external to dialectic contributed to its central position in the
intellectual culture at the end of the early Middle Ages. One of these was the
limited availability of other philosophical texts. Apart from the sources of dia-
lectic, the early medieval thinkers acquired philosophical influences from a
variety of sources. The works of Cicero and Seneca contain many philosophi-
cal discussions. Some of Augustine’s works are rather philosophical in nature.
Of Boethius’s works, we should not forget The Consolation of Philosophy or
the theological tractates (the Opuscula sacra). A partial translation of Plato’s
Timaeus was available at least in some places, and so on. However, none of
the other, heterogeneous philosophical influences could effectively compete
with dialectic for the status of the representative of reason. The situation
would change in the course of the twelfth century when, among other things,
Aristotle’s scientific and philosophical works became available.
Importantly, some of the non-dialectical sources helped to reinforce the sta-
tus of dialectic. Both Augustine and Boethius make significant use of dialectic
in their theological works.6 In addition, there are passages in Augustine’s works
in which he explicitly deals with dialectic and its usefulness in theological dis-
cussion. In On Christian Teaching, he affirms the great value of the art for treat-
ment of theological issues:
But the discipline of disputation has a very great strength in searching

into and unravelling all kinds of questions that come up in Holy Scripture,
only in the use of it we must guard against the inclination to wrangle and
the childish display of deceiving an adversary.7
6 The best known examples are Boethius’s theological tractates and Augustine’s On the Trinity.
7 Augustine, De doctrina christiana II, 31, 48.
In one of his early ‘philosophical’ dialogues, De ordine, Augustine characterizes

dialectic as the art with the aid of which reason produces other arts and dis-
ciplines. For this reason, dialectic can be called ‘the discipline of disciplines’:
… that discipline of disciplines which they call ‘dialectic’? This art teaches
how to teach, and it teaches how to learn. In it, reason itself shows itself
and reveals what it is, what it wishes, and what it is capable of. It knows
how to know, and by itself it not only wishes to make men knowledgeable
but also can make them so.8
These passages were used in eleventh-century discussions about the use of

dialectic in theology. The first passage is mentioned in the treatise De corpore
et sanguine Domini attributed to Lanfranc of Bec,9 which will be subjected to a
thorough examination later (in Part 2). Berengar cites the second in his eulogy
of reason, mentioned above.10
These considerations bring us to an important aspect of the centrality of
dialectic in this period. The art of dialectic not only was a flourishing art in it-
self but also fertilized other areas of culture. What is of particular concern here
is the impact of dialectic on theological studies. Theology as a systematic field
of study was to emerge in the course of the twelfth century. The beginnings
of this development can already be seen in the eleventh century: there were
scholars who had reached a high level in dialectic and made systematic use of
this art while exploring theological issues. Berengar of Tours, who has unde-
servedly suffered from a bad reputation, was one of the pioneers in discussing
theological issues in a new way. Berengar had good dialectical training, and
he consistently and systematically made use of his dialectically-based insights
while discussing the interpretation of the Eucharistic doctrine.11 Lanfranc’s
contribution in this area is more ambiguous and difficult to ascertain.12 The
most prominent representative of the incipient systematic theology, neverthe-
less, was of course none other than Anselm himself, who counts among the
ablest dialecticians of his generation.13
8 Augustine, De ordine II, 13, 38.

9 Lanfranc of Canterbury, De corpore et sanguine Domini, Patrologia Latina 150, 407–42,
417A–B.
10 Berengar, Rescriptum I, ed. Huygens, 85–86, lines 1799–802.
11 See Holopainen, Dialectic and Theology, 77–118.
12 In Holopainen, Dialectic and Theology, 44–76, I offered a reappraisal of Lanfranc’s contri-
bution. However, it seems that a more radical reappraisal is needed. See Part 2.
13 Desmond Paul Henry did pioneering work to re-evaluate this aspect of Anselm’s con-
tribution. See especially Desmond Paul Henry, The Logic of Saint Anselm (Oxford:
70 Chapter 4
Among Anselm’s complete treatises, there is one that directly pertains to

dialectic, De grammatico.14 In the standard edition of Anselm’s works, this dia-
logue has been placed after the Proslogion and it probably derives from roughly
the same period as Anselm’s ‘three dialogues’ De veritate, De libertate arbitrii,
and De casu diaboli, that is, the 1080s. The title of the work is related to two
examples in Aristotle’s Categories. In the beginning of the work, grammati-
cus (‘grammatical’ or ‘a grammarian’) is used as an example of a paronymous
term, and later it is mentioned as an example of a quality.15 However, everyone
would also say that a grammaticus is a man and, therefore, a substance. The
discussion in the dialogue starts with this dilemma:
STUDENT. Regarding grammaticus I ask that you make me certain

whether it is a substance or a quality, so that knowing this I would under-
stand what I should think about the other things which in a similar way
are said paronymously.16
Anselm elsewhere characterizes De grammatico as a piece of work which is

‘not without use to those who need to be introduced to dialectic’,17 but it is
clearly not meant as an elementary course in dialectic. The dialogue in the
treatise is between a student and a teacher, and not only the teacher but also
the student already has a thorough knowledge of the different areas of dialec-
tic. The context of De grammatico is to be sought, on the one hand, in the more
advanced teaching of dialectic. On the other hand, the dialogue contributes
to the theoretical study within the art. Anselm himself indicates—from the
mouth of the teacher, at the end of the work—that the discussion in De gram-
matico is related to some discussions in contemporary dialectic, and his aim
has been to contribute to these discussions:
Clarendon Press, 1967) and Desmond Paul Henry, Commentary of De grammatico: The
Historical-Logical Dimensions of a Dialogue of St. Anselm’s (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1974).
14 In addition, the collection of drafts known as Philosophical Fragments or Lambeth
Fragments can be characterized as largely dialectical. These fragments, not included in
Schmitt’s Opera omnia edition, are edited in the Memorials of St. Anselm, ed. R. W. Southern
and F. S. Schmitt, Auctores Britannici medii aevi 1 (London: Oxford University Press,
1969), 334–51.
15 Aristotle, Categories 1, 1a12–15; 4, 1b27–2a4; 8, 10a29–32. See Aristotle, Categoriae vel
Praedicamenta, Translatio Boethii & Editio composita, ed. Laurentius Minio-Paluello,
Aristoteles Latinus I.1–5 (Bruges-Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1961). Paronyms can also be
called denominatives (denominativa in Latin).
16 De grammatico 1, S I, 145.4–6.
17 De veritate, preface, S I, 173.6.
However, since you know how strongly the dialecticians in our times con-
tend about the question you have proposed, I do not want you to cling to
what we have said to such a degree that you would hold to it obstinately
even if by more cogent arguments someone else could destroy it and es-
tablish something different.18
Even though Anselm is modest in this concluding remark, his contribution is

of high quality, as recent studies have shown.19
Dialectical influences are amply present in Anselm’s theological treatises
as well. Anselm usually takes knowledge of dialectic for granted and assumes
that his audience is familiar with dialectical terminology, techniques, and the-
ories. To take up just a few examples from Anselm’s later treatises, one can
mention the discussion about the truth and falsity of propositions in De verita-
te, the ‘definition’ and ‘division’ of the freedom of choice in De libertate arbitrii,
the discussion about the signification of the notion ‘evil’ in De casu diaboli, the
remarks about the ‘modern dialecticians’ or ‘heretics of dialectic’ in Epistola
de incarnatione Verbi, and the discussion about two kinds of necessity and the
problem of future contingents in Cur Deus homo.20
Influences deriving from dialectic also play an important role in Anselm’s
first treatise, the Monologion (see also 2.3). In the preface, Anselm character-
izes the mode of presentation and the method in the treatise as follows:
To the meditation to be composed they prescribed … the following

format: that nothing at all in it should be argued on the authority of
scripture, but instead whatever would be asserted in the end of indi-
vidual investigations, in plain style and by unsophisticated arguments
and straightforward disputation, the necessity of reasoning would tersely

19 See Henry, Commentary of De grammatico; Marilyn McCord Adams, ‘Re-reading De
grammatico, or, Anselm’s Introduction to Aristotle’s Categories’, Documenti e studi sulla
tradizione filosofica medievale 11 (2000), 83–112; Peter Boschung, From a Topical Point of
View: Dialectic in Anselm of Canterbury’s De grammatico (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2006).
Both Adams and Boschung are highly critical of many of Henry’s claims, but they agree
that De grammatico demonstrates Anselm’s subtlety as a logician. See also Peter King,
‘Anselm’s Philosophy of Language’, in Brian Davies and Brian Leftow (eds.), The Cambridge
Companion to Anselm (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 84–110.
20 De veritate 2, S I, 177–80; De libertate arbitrii 13–14, S I, 225–26; De casu diaboli 10–11, S I,
247–51; Epistola de incarnatione Verbi 1, S II, 9.20–10.13 and 4, S II, 17.22–18.7; Cur Deus
homo II, 17, S II, 122–26.
72 Chapter 4
lead to that conclusion and the clarity of truth would openly manifest it
to be the case.21
Anselm warns his audience that the work at hand will be strenuous reading.
The reader should expect concise argumentation in which Anselm establishes
a series of conclusions by proving them with the aid of rational arguments.
Because of the mode of presentation, dialectical influence is omnipresent in
the Monologion. Anselm strives to make his arguments formally valid accord-
ing to dialectical standards, and he strives to start from premises that any ratio-
nal person would be compelled to accept.
As already intimated (2.3), one of Anselm’s objectives in the Monologion
is to critically discuss the applicability of dialectical notions in the treatment
of the divine essence. For the most part, the discussions directed to this end
are included in Anselm’s treatment of the properties of the Supreme Being
in Monologion 15–28. The metaphysical theory contained in the doctrines of
predicables and categories was designed for discussing the natural world and
the things in it. Anselm argues in the Monologion that the Supreme Being dif-
fers from natural entities in important ways: the ontological framework en-
tailed in the theories of predicables and categories does not apply to it. In
Monologion 16–17, Anselm points out some peculiarities of the attributes of
the Supreme Being. In the theory of predicables, there is a distinction between
predications in respect of what a thing is (in eo quod quid) and in respect of
what it is like (in eo quod quale). It would appear that saying that the Supreme
Being is wise would be a statement ‘in respect of what it is like’. Anselm argues
that all true substantial predications about the Supreme Being are ‘in respect
of what it is’. For example, it is not said to be wise because it has wisdom but
because it is wisdom itself. Further, Anselm argues that the things that can
be predicated of the Supreme Being are not separate things but one and the
same thing.22 The outcome of Monologion 16–17 is that the essential constitu-
tion of the divine essence is altogether different from that of created beings.
In Monologion 18–24, Anselm discusses the relation of the Supreme Being
to space and time. Even in this respect, it proves to be quite unlike created
beings.23
In Monologion 25, Anselm investigates whether the Supreme Being is mu-
table by virtue of accidents. The main point is that the Supreme Being does not
and cannot have any accidents that would imply some change in it. However, it

22 Monologion 16–17, S I, 30–32.
23 Monologion 18–24, S I, 32–42.
is possible to ascribe relations to it that in no way threaten its immutability.24

In the tradition of the Latin Church, the Trinity is described as one substance in
three persons (una substantia, tres personae). Anselm comments on this usage
in Monologion 26, 27, and 79 from the point of view of dialectic. He points
out that the word ‘substance’ does not apply to the Supreme Being, if we take
the word ‘substance’ in a technical dialectical sense. However, Anselm does
not object to using the word in a loose sense, meaning the same as ‘essence’.25
In Monologion 79, he discusses the question of what common name could be
used of the three in the Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. They are not
‘persons’ in the proper sense of the term, for a person is, by definition, an indi-
vidual substance of a rational nature. Since the Father, the Son, and the Spirit
are not substances, they are not persons. However, since there is no common
name that could be properly used to refer to the three, Anselm suggests that
they could be called either three persons or three substances, for these terms
bring out the plurality in the unity.26
In Monologion 28, Anselm draws together his discussion of the properties
of the Supreme Being. Anselm concludes that the Supreme Being exists in ‘a
wonderfully singular and singularly wonderful way of its own’ which is quite
unlike the way in which created things exist. Compared to its unqualifiedly
simple existence, the other things hardly exist at all.27 Anselm’s main objec-
tive in Monologion 15–28 is to describe the unique mode of being of the su-
preme essence by contrasting it to the mode of being of created things, and
he does so by pointing out that the doctrines of predicables and categories do
not apply to the divine essence. It is possible to view this as an attempt to pre-
clude some misuses of dialectic in theological discussion. Many of the critical
points that Anselm makes have parallels in Augustine’s On the Trinity and in
Boethius’s Opuscula sacra.28 It is worth mentioning, though, that Anselm does
not present his critical reflections about the applicability of dialectical theo-
ries to the divine essence as based on authority. Anselm builds his argument
in the Monologion on reason alone, and the chapters under discussion are no
exception. Reason itself forces us to conclude that the principles that apply to
created beings do not apply to the Supreme Being.
Anselm’s second treatise, the Proslogion, has a different appearance. There
are no ontological or metaphysical terms deriving from the art of dialectic in

25 Monologion 26–27, S I, 44–45.
27 Monologion 28, S I, 45–46, especially 45.25–46.3.
28 See Augustine, De trinitate V and VII, 4–6; Boethius, De trinitate 2–5; Boethius, Contra
Eutychen 2–3.
74 Chapter 4
the main body of the work, and even though there are many tightly reasoned
passages in it, there are no technical terms related to the dialectical theory
of argument.29 Superficially, the Proslogion is the least dialectical among
Anselm’s treatises, but the appearance of the Proslogion is deceptive. We have
seen that there is a single argument in the Proslogion with the aid of which it
should be possible to prove everything that the Christians believe about the
divine essence. In what follows, I seek to show that Anselm looked at this argu-
ment within the framework of the dialectical theory of argument.30
4.2 The Boethian Theory of Argument
Of the parts of dialectic that are directly concerned with argumentation, syl-
logistics is focused on the validity of the inference form, and topics is focused
on discovering and confirming the premises in the inference. In its Boethian
form, the theory of topics assumes that there are self-evident universal propo-
sitions, called maximal propositions, that can be used to prove other propo-
sitions. The main part of topics consists of a discussion of various maximal
propositions, grouped under a number of headings called differentiae.31 Before
presenting such a discussion, however, Boethius offers a general treatment
of issues in the theory of argument. The following presentation is based on
Boethius’s treatment in book I of In Ciceronis Topica, that is, the commentary
on Cicero’s Topics.32 ‘Argument’ (argumentum) is one of the basic terms in the
Boethian theory of argument. Other basic terms are ‘maximal proposition’, ‘dif-
ferentia’, ‘Topic’, ‘thing in doubt’, ‘question’, and ‘argumentation’.
Topics was principally conceived as a heuristic technique for uncovering
arguments. In the text that Boethius comments on, Cicero compares finding
29 I am thinking here of the main text of the Proslogion, leaving aside the preface and the
exchange with Gaunilo. Nevertheless, there is a rather dialectical discussion of divine om-
nipotence in Proslogion 7, S I, 105–106.
30 For earlier versions of the discussion that follows, see Holopainen, Dialectic and Theology,
135–45; Toivo J. Holopainen, ‘Anselm’s Argumentum and the Early Medieval Theory of
Argument’, Vivarium 45 (2007), 1–29, at 10–29.
31 This use of ‘differentia’ should not be confused with the use of the term in the theory of
predicables.
32 Boethius, In Ciceronis Topica, ed. J. C. Orelli and I. G. Baiter (Zurich: Fuesslini, 1833), 270–
388. English translation: Boethius’s In Ciceronis Topica, translated, with notes and an intro-
duction by Eleonore Stump (Ithaca-London: Cornell University Press, 1988). I use Stump’s
translations. For a general discussion of Boethius’s works on the topics, see Niels Jørgen
Green-Pedersen, The Tradition of the Topics in the Middle Ages (Munich: Philosophia,
1984), 39–82.
arguments to finding hidden things. You can find a hidden thing easily if the
place (locus in Latin, topos in Greek) where you should look for it is indicated
to you. In the same way, you can find arguments easily if you know the ‘places’
where it pays to look for them.33 In topics, the places where arguments can be
found are simply called ‘places’, loci; the English technical term is ‘Topic’ (with
a capital T).
The traditional Ciceronian definition of a ‘Topic’ says that it is ‘the seat of
the argument’ (sedes argumenti). According to Boethius’s account, the tra-
dition contains two competing ideas about what kinds of things Topics are:
the Aristotelian view says that maximal propositions are Topics, whereas the
Ciceronian view holds that differentiae of maximal propositions are Topics.34
The maximal propositions are universal, self-evident propositions that are
‘known and manifest to such an extent that they need no proof but rather
themselves provide proof for things that are in doubt’, such as ‘Every number is
either even or odd’ and ‘If equals are subtracted from equals, equals remain’.35
The differentiae, for their part, are the headings under which the maximal
propositions are grouped. For example, there are some maximal propositions
that are related to definitions, and these are situated under the differentia ‘from
the definition’ (a definitione) or ‘from the whole’ (a toto). Correspondingly,
those maximal propositions that concern the genus are situated under the dif-
ferentia ‘from the genus’ (a genere), and so on.36 From a practical point of view,
it makes little difference whether you use the term ‘Topic’ to refer to maximal
propositions or to the differentiae of the maximal propositions.
‘Argument’ (argumentum) was defined by Cicero as ‘a reason that produces
belief regarding a thing in doubt’ (ratio rei dubiae faciens fidem).37 As Boethius
construed this definition, the central expression in it is ‘thing in doubt’ (res
dubia), which he understood as a technical term. Boethius starts from the as-
sumption that arguments are produced for the purpose of solving ‘questions’.
‘Question’ (quaestio) is also here a technical term, and it is defined as ‘a propo-
sition in doubt’. Not all interrogative sentences are questions in this sense. A
question asks whether or not something is the case, for example ‘Is heaven
spherical?’ Boethius claims that a question, in a way, includes a contradiction:
it contains an affirmation and a negation. For example, the question ‘Is heav-
en spherical?’ contains the affirmation ‘Heaven is spherical’ and the negation
33 Cicero, Topica 2, 7.
34 Boethius, In Ciceronis Topica I, [2, 7–2, 8], ed. Orelli and Baiter, 282–83. Trans. Stump, 36.
35 Boethius, In Ciceronis Topica I, [2, 7–2, 8], ed. Orelli and Baiter, 280. Trans. Stump, 33.
36 See Boethius, In Ciceronis Topica I, [2, 7–2, 8], ed. Orelli and Baiter, 281. Trans. Stump, 34.
37 Cicero, Topica 2, 8. Boethius, In Ciceronis Topica I, [2, 7–2, 8], ed. Orelli and Baiter, 276–77.
Trans. Stump, 29, modified.
76 Chapter 4
‘Heaven is not spherical’. These two propositions are called by Boethius the
‘parts’ of a question. Now, the term ‘thing in doubt’ (res dubia) is defined as ‘a
part of a question’ (pars quaestionis). The expression ‘thing in doubt’, hence,
can be used to refer to the affirmation and negation that a question contains.38
However, when ‘a thing in doubt’ is understood in this way, the definition of ‘ar-
gument’ will say that an argument is a ‘reason’ that produces belief regarding
either the affirmation or the negation that are contained in a question:
The whole purpose of an argument is directed towards a question, that is,

towards a proposition that is in doubt—not in order to prove the whole
question but rather to corroborate by reason a part of it … One person
maintains the part that is an affirmation and another person the part that
is a negation, and each person seeks whatever arguments he can find, the
first for support (ad astruendam) of the affirmation and the second for its
destruction (ad destruendam). For it makes no difference whether some-
one asserts an affirmation or destroys a negation, whether he maintains
a negation or opposes an affirmation.39
What kind of entity should we assume an ‘argument’ to be? The definition of

‘argument’ is not very helpful in this respect: all that it says is that an argument
is ‘a reason’ (ratio). Boethius’s characterization of the term ‘argumentation’ (ar-
gumentatio) suggests one possible way of understanding what kind of thing
an argument is. He explains that an argument will not be able to produce be-
lief regarding something unless it is expressed by means of propositions, and
‘[t]he expression and arrangement of an argument by means of propositions is
called an argumentation’.40 Since argumentation is the expressing of an argu-
ment, the argument can be understood to be that which is expressed in the ar-
gumentation, or, as Boethius formulates a little later, ‘the thought and meaning
of the syllogism’ (mens et sententia syllogismi).41 According to this usage, then,
a syllogism should not be called an argument. A syllogism is an argumenta-
tion; the argument is that which the syllogism is used to express. The matter is
not this simple, however, because other passages in In Ciceronis Topica suggest
different ideas about what ‘arguments’ are.
It was mentioned that Boethius describes it as Cicero’s view that the dif-
ferentiae of maximal propositions are Topics. As part of his exposition of the
38 See Boethius, In Ciceronis Topica I, [2, 7–2, 8], ed. Orelli and Baiter, 277. Trans. Stump, 30.
39 Boethius, In Ciceronis Topica I, [2, 7–2, 8], ed. Orelli and Baiter, 277–78. Trans. Stump, 30.
Ciceronian view, Boethius points out four possible ways of interpreting the
terms ‘argumentation’ and ‘argument’ and argues that in all four cases the dif-
ferentia of maximal propositions is ‘the seat of the argument’. In two of the
cases, the term ‘argument’ is interpreted in the same way, the difference being
in the signification of the term ‘argumentation’. As a result, the passage in-
cludes three possible interpretations for the term ‘argument’:
1. the argument is ‘the thought and meaning of the syllogism’;
2. the argument is ‘the expression of the reasoning together with the maxi-
mal propositions and the meaning of the syllogism’;
3. the argument is ‘the maximal proposition’.42
On the basis of the comments that Boethius makes earlier, it appears that he
prefers the first interpretation, but he fails to say it in this context. The signifi-
cation of the term ‘argument’ that is relevant for Anselm’s argument, however,
is not among the three explicated by Boethius. Some passages in In Ciceronis
Topica suggest a fourth interpretation: the term ‘argument’ can be used to refer
to the middle term of the syllogism.
To appreciate the idea that a middle term can be called an argument, it is
important to recognize, first of all, the central role of terms in early medieval
dialectic (or in Aristotelian logic). Dialectical sentence analysis starts from
the analysis of a simple sentence by terms: a simple sentence consists of two
terms, the subject and the predicate. In categorical syllogistics, terms have a
constitutive role. A categorical syllogism consists of three simple sentences,
which contain three different terms (S, P, and M), each of which appears in two
sentences: the predicate of the conclusion (P) also appears in the first premise;
the subject of the conclusion (S) also appears in the second premise; the third
term is the middle term (M), which appears in both of the premises. The clas-
sification of valid syllogisms starts from a division of them into four figures
on the basis of how the terms S, P, and M are situated in the premises (that
is to say, whether they are in a subject position or in a predicate position).
The subject and predicate of the conclusion are called ‘the extreme terms’ or
‘extremes’ (extremi).43
42 See Boethius, In Ciceronis Topica I, [2, 7–2, 8], ed. Orelli and Baiter, 282. Trans. Stump,
35–36.
43 The main sources for categorical syllogistics were Boethius’s textbooks Introductio ad
syllogismos categoricos (Patrologia Latina 64, 761–94) and De syllogismis categoricis
(Patrologia Latina 64, 793–832). In the early Middle Ages, the letters S, P, and M were not
yet used to refer to the three terms in the syllogism. Instead, the expressions ‘the lesser
term’ (= S), ‘the greater term’ (= P), and ‘the middle term’ or ‘the common term’ (= M) were
used.
78 Chapter 4
The idea that there is at least a close connection between an ‘argument’ and
the middle term of a syllogism comes up in a passage where Boethius explains
how a syllogism functions. The ‘question’ that Boethius uses as an example in
this passage is ‘Whether a man is a substance or not’. Boethius chooses to de-
fend the affirmative part of the question, that is, the part ‘Man is a substance’.
Thus, this is the ‘thing in doubt’ that he aims at confirming with the aid of an
argument, and at the same time it is the conclusion of the syllogism that he
will construct. The subject term in it is ‘man’, and the predicate term is ‘sub-
stance’. To be able to construct a syllogism that proves his conclusion, Boethius
needs to find a middle term. He explains the procedure as follows:
So in order for us to join man and substance, we must find a middle term
that might unite both terms. Let this be animal and let this be one prem-
ise: ‘Every man is an animal’. In this proposition animal is the predicate,
and man is the subject. Then I add ‘But every animal is a substance’. In
this proposition animal is now the subject and substance is the predi-
cate. And in this way I conclude, ‘Every man is a substance’. … Thus the
extreme terms are united by insertion of a middle term, and in this way
the members of the question are coupled with each other and the doubt
is resolved by the proof employed. Hence an argument is nothing other
than the discovery of an intermediate, for an intermediate will be able to
conjoin the extremes, if an affirmation is being maintained, or to disjoin
them, if a negation is being asserted.44
It is noteworthy that Boethius also describes the syllogistic procedure from the
point of view of terms, and from this point of view, of course, the middle term
will play the central role. In Boethius’s description, the middle term (medius
terminus) is a term that ‘unites both terms’ (qui utrosque copulet terminos), and
when a syllogism is formulated with the aid of it, ‘the extreme terms are united
(copulantur) by insertion of a middle term’. In this way, the middle term ‘will be
able to conjoin the extremes’, in the instance where you argue for the affirma-
tive part of the question, ‘or to disjoin them’, if you argue for the negative part.
The power of the syllogism is, hence, based on the power of its middle term.
The centrality of the middle term for the argument also appears in Boethius’s
statement that ‘an argument is nothing other than the discovery of an interme-
diate’ (nihil est aliud argumentum quam medietatis inventio). It should also be
noted that Boethius’s explanation of the functioning of a syllogism includes a
44 Boethius, In Ciceronis Topica I, [2, 7–2, 8], ed. Orelli and Baiter, 279. Trans. Stump, 32,
slightly modified.
psychological aspect: the introduction of the middle term conjoins or disjoins

the extremes in such a way that ‘the doubt’ concerning the matter ‘is resolved’.
In the passage above, Boethius does not exactly say that the middle term
can be called an argument. However, such an interpretation is not far-fetched,
and it is encouraged by a series of passages in which Boethius seems to imply
that some terms can function as arguments. In a number of passages, Boethius
denies that the subject or the predicate of a question could by themselves be
used as arguments to solve the question.45 By denying that the terms of a ques-
tion could, in themselves, be arguments, Boethius raises the possibility that
some other terms could serve as arguments, and if we choose to call some term
an argument, the most obvious choice will be the middle term. Furthermore,
Boethius does not just incidentally deny that the subject or predicate term of
a question could be an argument: it is a recurring theme in his discussion of
Cicero’s examples of arguments from different Topics in book I of In Ciceronis
Topica.46 To Boethius, it is a rule of dialectic that a term in a question cannot
by itself function as an argument to solve the question in which it occurs, and
he can be interpreted as implying that the middle term in the syllogism may
be called an ‘argument’.
4.3 Some Contemporary Testimonies
Before turning to Anselm’s single argument, I would like to draw attention to

some pieces of evidence which confirm the potential relevance of the above
considerations for the interpretation of Anselm’s argument. It was observed
that the Boethian sources do not contain any one idea of what kind of entity
one should take an argument to be, but they leave room for discussion about
the matter. Peter Abelard’s Super Topica glossae (c. 1115–20) confirms that there
indeed was such discussion. Abelard mentions three possible interpretations
for the term ‘argument’ that have been advanced. The first interpretation,
which is also Abelard’s, is that the term ‘argument’ refers to the propositions
preceding the conclusion, that is, the premises in the argumentation. Some
other people say that the argument is not the premises but the meaning
(intellectus) of these premises.47 Thirdly, some dialecticians
45 Boethius, In Ciceronis Topica I, [2, 8], ed. Orelli and Baiter, 283–84. Trans. Stump, 37.
46 Boethius, In Ciceronis Topica I, [2, 9], ed. Orelli and Baiter, 288, and [2, 10], 289–90 and 291.
Trans. Stump, 42, 45, and 47.
47 Peter Abelard, Super Topica glossae, ed. Mario Dal Pra, Scritti di logica, 2nd ed. (Florence:
La Nuova Italia, 1969), 294. For the doctrine of the topics in the tenth to twelfth centuries,
see Green-Pedersen, Tradition of the Topics, 139–221, here especially 171–72.
80 Chapter 4
call neither the propositions nor their meaning ‘the argument’, but in-
stead those things or terms in the preceding propositions—as that in
which the probative force resides—which we call ‘Topics’. For example,
when we say that Socrates is a man, wherefore he is an animal, they call
man—which is the Topic—‘the argument’.48
We need not get involved in the details of Abelard’s understanding of topics.

What concerns us is that Abelard says that some people call a thing or a term
‘an argument’. In addition, it is remarkable that Abelard points out that these
people appeal to the authority of Boethius for this: ‘Even Boethius himself,
when he discusses the argument of syllogism in book I of his Commentary on
Cicero’s Topics, appears to call the middle term “the argument”.’49 After this,
Abelard reproduces some passages from book I of Boethius’s In Ciceronis Topica,
including the one in which the functioning of the syllogism is explained.50
Abelard’s remarks show that, at least at the beginning of the twelfth century,
it was a genuine option for dialecticians to interpret Boethius’s In Ciceronis
Topica as suggesting that the middle term is the argument.
Second, in Lanfranc’s De corpore et sanguine Domini (c. 1063) there is a pas-
sage which makes use of a large number of terms and principles that pertain
to the theory of topics:
Hence above, where you [Berengar] wanted to prove that the bread and
the wine of the altar do not undergo an essential change at the consecra-
tion, you adopted two [sentences] as Topics for arguments, of which I
proved with the aid of manifest reasons that one was yours only, and the
other was no one’s. Here, you made a grave error. For what was yours was
the question. It is this that we are querying: we endeavour to tear down
and smash it with all the weight and impact of arguments. Moreover,
no question can be a Topic for an argument. A Topic for an argument
has to be either certain in itself or proved by means of certain grounds.
Therefore, what was only yours, should not at all have been adopted to
prove a thing in doubt.51
48 Peter Abelard, Super Topica glossae, ed. Dal Pra, 294.

49 Peter Abelard, Super Topica glossae, ed. Dal Pra, 295: ‘Ipse etiam Boetius in primo super
Topica Ciceronis, cum de argumento sillogismi loqueretur, ipsum medium terminum
visus est argumentum vocare …’
50 Peter Abelard, Super Topica glossae, ed. Dal Pra, 295–96. Cf. Boethius, In Topica Ciceronis
I, [2, 7–2, 8], ed. Orelli and Baiter, 279. Trans. Stump, 32.
51 Lanfranc, De corpore et sanguine Domini 7, Patrologia Latina 150, 417B–C.
Among the basic terms of topics included in the passage are the following:
Topic, argument, argumentation, question, and, a thing in doubt. The discus-
sion of De corpore in Part 2 will establish that this treatise is highly problematic
as a source, but the passage quoted nevertheless makes clear that the author of
the treatise was familiar with the dialectical theory of argument.
Third, even though Anselm makes little use of terminology pertaining to
topics, even outside the Proslogion, there is some evidence to show that he
is familiar with the dialectical theory of argument. In De grammatico 1, the
Student describes the question discussed in the work with terms reminiscent
of some passages in the sources of topics:
Further, since grammaticus must be either a substance or a quality in

such a way that if it is the one of these it is not the other … hence what-
ever has the strength to establish (valet ad astruendam) the one alterna-
tive (unam partem) destroys (destruit) the other, and whatever weakens
the one alternative strengthens the other.52
The idea that a ‘question’ consists of two mutually exclusive ‘parts’ derives
from the tradition of topics, and the verbs astruere and destruere are used as
a pair in Boethius’s In Ciceronis Topica.53 In De grammatico 4, Anselm empha-
sizes the centrality of the middle term (here called ‘a common term’) in an
inference:
T. See, then, whether they [that is, two sentences intended as premises]
have a common term, without which they cannot accomplish anything.
S. I see that they do not have a common term and, hence, that nothing
follows from them.
…
T. Does it seem to you, then, that nothing can be concluded from these
sequences of yours?

53 Boethius, In Ciceronis Topica I, [2, 7–2, 8], ed. Orelli and Baiter, 278. Trans. Stump, 30. The
topical framework of Anselm’s argumentation in De grammatico has also been pointed
out by Lothar Steiger, ‘Contexe syllogismos. Über die Kunst und Bedeutung der Topik bei
Anselm’, in F. S. Schmitt (ed.), Analecta Anselmiana I (Frankfurt/Main: Minerva, 1969),
107–43; Boschung, From a Topical Point of View, 19–65; Ian Logan, Reading Anselm’s
Proslogion: The History of Anselm’s Argument and its Significance Today (Farnham:
Ashgate, 2009), 13–18. The verb astruere also appears in Anselm’s description of the single
argument in the preface to the Proslogion, S I, 93.7.
82 Chapter 4
S. That is what I thought, anyway. But your questioning makes me sus-

pect that there perhaps is some concealed efficacy in them. But how can
they accomplish anything without there being a common term?
M. The common term of a syllogism must not be so much in utter-
ances (in prolatione) as in meaning (in sententia). For just as nothing is
accomplished if a term is common in the words pronounced but not in
meaning, so it hinders nothing if the common term is not in the utter-
ances but in their understanding. For what binds the syllogism together
is the meaning, not the words. (Sententia quippe ligat syllogismum, non
verba.)54
This passage confirms that Anselm shared the view that what is central in the
argument is the middle term.
Anselm was familiar with the Boethian theory of argument, and there is
no reason to doubt that he was also familiar with the contemporary discus-
sions about this part of dialectic. Even though Abelard’s description of the dif-
ferent interpretations of the term ‘argument’ need not reflect the situation in
Anselm’s environment, Anselm must have been familiar with the fact that the
terms ‘argument’ and ‘argumentation’ were used in a variety of different ways
in the Boethian sources. Anselm himself usually does not make any systematic
distinction between ‘argument’ and ‘argumentation’,55 and he usually does not
use the term ‘argument’ of expressions that function as a middle term. There
appears to be one exception: the description of the single argument in the
preface to the Proslogion and the comments on it in the Responsio.
4.4 A Boethian Reconstruction of Anselm’s Argument
In the preceding chapter, a favourable case was made that ‘that than which a
greater cannot be thought’ is to be identified as Anselm’s single argument. The
theory of argument described in this chapter makes this initially unexpected
view more understandable. Boethius’s account of how a syllogism functions
accentuates the centrality of the middle term, and some of his remarks suggest
that the middle term can be called an ‘argument’. One of the roles that ‘that
than which a greater cannot be thought’ has in Anselm’s argumentation is that
it functions as the middle term in some inferences (see below). In Responsio 5,
Anselm explicitly uses the term argumentum to refer to notions like ‘that than
54 De grammatico 4, S I, 148.29–149.14.

55 See Logan, Reading Anselm’s Proslogion, 15–16.
which a greater cannot be thought’ in certain contexts.56 In the Responsio he

also appears to make a distinction between ‘argument’ and ‘argumentation’:
argumentatio is a concrete piece of argumentation, whereas argumentum is
either a term or a thing.57
One of Anselm’s central claims about the single argument in the preface to
the Proslogion is that it ‘would need no other [argument] for proving itself than
itself alone’. Anselm comments on this requirement in Responsio 5 in a pas-
sage which is vital for the identification of the single argument (see 3.4). What
Anselm means can be explained within a Boethian framework starting from
the idea that the middle term can be called an argument. The basic idea is that
the same notion, ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’, is first used as a
middle term in a syllogism, and then it is used as a (quasi) middle term in a re-
ductio argument to support its own status as the middle term of the syllogism.
In this constellation, ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ can be seen
as an ‘argument’ which serves as an ‘argument’ for supporting itself.
Commentators sometimes emphasize that Anselm’s argumentative idea
should not be construed as a categorical syllogism,58 and it is true enough that
a mere categorical syllogism is not sufficient to capture the logical structure of
Anselm’s idea. However, it is important to note that the most natural recon-
struction of Anselm’s argumentation includes categorical syllogisms in which
‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ serves as a middle term. Anselm
requires of his single argument that it ought to be able to prove a number of
sentences about God. If we look at these sentences from the point of view of
their terms, they all have the same subject term, namely ‘God’, whereas there
are many different predicate terms, like ‘wise’, ‘good’, ‘goodness’, ‘creator of all’,
and so on. From a Boethian perspective, what Anselm needs in order to be
able to prove these sentences is a term that has the power to bring together
the extreme terms in each sentence. Further, it appears that Anselm should be
able to make use of the same middle term in all the cases in order to provide a
single argument. Actually, several middle terms can be suggested, but the one
56 Responsio 5, S I, 135.18–20 and 135.24–6. See 3.4 and below.

57 The term argumentatio appears three times: Responsio 2, S I, 132.10: ‘Dixi itaque in argu-
mentatione quam reprehendis …’; Responsio 3, S I, 133.8–9: ‘… cui aptare valeat conexio-
nem huius meae argumentationis …’; Responsio 10, S I, 138.28–9: ‘Puto quia monstravi me
non infirma sed satis necessaria argumentatione probasse …’ In addition to the two ap-
pearances in Responsio 5, the term argumentum appears in Responsio 1, S I, 130.16: ‘… fide
et conscientia tua pro firmissimo utor argumento.’
58 Jasper Hopkins, ‘Anselm of Canterbury’, in Jorge J. E. Gracia and Timothy B. Noone (eds.),
A Companion to the Philosophy in the Middle Ages (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003), 138–51,
at 140.
84 Chapter 4
that Anselm has in mind is ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’. Using
this term as a middle term, it is possible to construct a categorical syllogism for
any of those sentences that the single argument should prove. For example, we
can prove that ‘God is wise’ as follows:
God is that than which a greater cannot be thought

That than which a greater cannot be thought is wise
Therefore, God is wise.
This kind of categorical syllogism is certainly not the most important thing re-
lated to the single argument. Anselm does not actually spell out any such syllo-
gism in the Proslogion or in the Responsio. Nevertheless, the idea is undeniably
there. Anselm proves notions of that than which a greater cannot be thought
in order that the conclusions can be applied to God (Proslogion 2–3), and he
proves notions of God on the basis that he is that than which a greater cannot
be thought (Proslogion 5, 15, 18). A reconstruction of such arguments with the
aid of tools that were used in early medieval dialectic will naturally include a
categorical syllogism.59
Using a reductio ad absurdum is a more important and more interesting part
of Anselm’s argumentation. As shown previously (2.4), Anselm could argue for
sentences like ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought is wise’ by present-
ing reductio inferences for their support:
If that than which a greater cannot be thought were not wise, it could be
thought to be wise, which is greater.
Therefore, if that than which a greater cannot be thought were not wise,
then that than which a greater cannot be thought would be that than
which a greater can be thought.
But this is impossible.
Therefore, that than which a greater cannot be thought is wise.
How should such a reductio be analysed with the aid of early medieval tools? If
we apply the approach that Boethius suggests in book I of In Ciceronis Topica,
we should look for terms, that is, expressions that function as subjects and
predicates in the sentences in the reductio. Because ‘that than which a greater
cannot be thought’ and the predicate in question (say, ‘wise’) are the subject
59 It should be emphasized, however, that the functioning of the single argument as such
does not depend on the identification of that than which a greater cannot be thought as
God. See 3.3.
and predicate of the conclusion, they are also to be treated as terms in the
preceding sentences. If we leave them out, there is little in the reductio that
could qualify as a ‘term’: there are expressions like ‘can be thought’ and ‘great-
er’, but none of these plays the central role that the middle term is assumed to
play. The most central term in the reductio is no other than ‘that than which a
greater cannot be thought’, on the signification of which the reductio hinges.
As Anselm says in Responsio 10, the ‘signification of this utterance’ contains ‘so
much force’ that ‘what is said is necessarily … proved both to exist in reality
and to be whatever should be believed about the divine substance.’60
A Boethian reconstruction of Anselm’s argument can, hence, be presented
as follows. You want to present a proof for a number of sentences about God.
You prove these sentences with the aid of categorical syllogisms in which ‘that
than which a greater cannot be thought’ is used as a middle term. To confirm
one of the premises in the syllogism, you again use the term ‘that than which a
greater cannot be thought’ as a (quasi) middle term, but this time not in a cat-
egorical syllogism but in a reductio argument. There is a psychological aspect
in the Boethian approach: the middle term of a syllogism has the power of
conjoining or disjoining the extreme terms (that is, the subject and the predi-
cate of the conclusion) not only logically but also in the mind of the one who
considers the syllogism, so that the doubt is removed. The psychological as-
pect makes it possible to apply the analysis designed for categorical syllogisms
to an inference like Anselm’s reductio. Because the consideration of the term
‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ forces the mind to see the rela-
tion of the extreme terms (say, ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’
and ‘wise’) in a certain way, this term can be characterized as a (quasi) middle
term and as an ‘argument’. In the same way, it is useful to think of the verb
‘prove’ and other similar verbs in a psychological manner: ‘proving’ is bringing
it about that the relation of the extreme terms will be seen in a certain way. The
notion ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ can function as the single
argument because it contains ‘so much force’ that it will be able to ‘prove’ a
number of statements without bringing in any other notions that would serve
as arguments.
Anselm’s discussion of ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ and
‘(that which is) greater than all (else)’ in Responsio 5 (see 3.4) fits well with
the Boethian reconstruction of the single argument, and it confirms that the
reconstruction closely corresponds to Anselm’s own way of looking at the mat-
ter. Even though Anselm does not say it in so many words, ‘greater than all’ and
‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ are two rival middle terms that
60 Responsio 10, S I, 138.30–139.3.

86 Chapter 4
can be used in categorical syllogisms to prove sentences about God. The no-
tion ‘greater than all’ can function as a middle term in a categorical syllogism
exactly in the same way as ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ can:
God is the greater than all

The greater than all is wise
Therefore, God is wise.
What makes the notion ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ superior
to ‘greater than all’ is that it is capable of supporting its own status as a middle
term if this should be questioned. The discussion in Responsio 5 is connected
to the claim in the preface that the single argument ‘would need no other [ar-
gument] for proving itself than itself alone’. The main thrust in Responsio 5 is
to point out the difference between an argument that needs some other argu-
ment than itself for proving itself and an argument that needs no other argu-
ment than itself for proving itself. The argument ‘greater than all’ is an example
of the former type, whereas the argument ‘that than which a greater cannot
be thought’ is an example—in Anselm’s opinion, the unique example—of the
latter type:
For what if someone should say that something is greater than all existing
things but that it can nevertheless be thought not to exist, and that some-
thing greater than it can be thought, even if this does not exist? Would
it in this case be possible to infer that it obviously is not greater than all
existing things, as in the other case it would quite obviously be declared
that it is not that than which a greater cannot be thought? The former
inference stands in need of another argument (alio indiget argumento)
in addition to what is called ‘greater than all’, but in the latter no other
[argument] is needed (non est opus alio) than the one that resounds, ‘that
than which a greater cannot be thought’.61
A little later, Anselm suggests that ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’
can be used as an argument (argumentum) to prove that certain predicates
apply to the greater than all.62 Using the reductio argument, it is easy to prove
that that than which a greater cannot be thought is the greater than all, and
therefore the conclusions which apply to the former also apply to the latter.
In this way, ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ can function as a
61 Responsio 5, S I, 135.8–20.
62 Responsio 5, S I, 135.24–31.
middle term that brings together the term ‘greater than all’ and the predicates
that apply to the divine essence.
The Boethian theory of argument can be used to account for Anselm’s confi-
dence that his argument is unique. Anselm ends Responsio 5 with the following
remark:
Do you see, then, how rightly you compared me to that stupid person
who wanted to affirm the lost island’s existence merely on the ground
that its description would be understood?63
The significance of this ironical remark can be explained as follows. As part of

his criticism of Anselm’s argument for God’s existence, Gaunilo had suggested
the counterexample of a lost island. Anselm rejects this counterexample in
Responsio 3, but he is not very explicit about his grounds for doing so. What
Anselm states quite clearly is that he considers his argument to be unique:
I reply with confidence that if anyone should find for me something ex-
isting either in reality or only in thought, in addition to that than which a
greater cannot be thought, to which the logic of my argumentation could
be applied, then I will find the lost island and give it to that person, no
longer to be lost.64
In this passage, Anselm claims that the technique of argumentation used by

him cannot be used in connection with any other notion than ‘that than which
a greater cannot be thought’. The remark at the end of Responsio 5 implies
that Anselm connects the uniqueness of ‘that than which a greater cannot be
thought’ to the feature that it needs no other argument than itself for proving
itself. Correspondingly, the ‘lost island’ suffers from the same deficiency as the
‘greater than all’: if someone denies its existence, you cannot use a reductio ad
absurdum based on the notion ‘lost island’ (or ‘the most excellent island’) to
prove your case.
Anselm’s conviction that ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ is
unique as an argument, in the sense that it can be used as an argument to
‘prove itself’, appears to be related to some of the Boethian ideas discussed
above. Boethius presents it as a rule of dialectic that a term in a question can-
not by itself function as an argument for solving the question in which it occurs.
Anselm’s technique appears to counter this rule, for he uses ‘that than which
63 Responsio 5, S I, 135.31–136.2.
64 Responsio 3, S I, 133.6–9.
88 Chapter 4
a greater cannot be thought’ as an argument to prove sentences in which ‘that

than which a greater cannot be thought’ appears as the subject term. Anselm
assumed that his argument would be the sole exception to the rule, and there-
fore he had every reason to believe that his argument was unique. Hence, he
could confidently promise the lost island to the one who finds something other
than ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ to which the logic of his
argument would apply.
4.5 The Puzzle of the Proslogion
The principal objective in Part 1 of the study has been to uncover and de-
scribe the single argument that Anselm had discovered and wished to pres-
ent to his audience in the Proslogion. Essentially, this objective has now been
achieved. Anselm’s single argument is the notion ‘that than which a greater
cannot be thought’. The signification of this notion contains so much force
that it ‘need[s] no other [argument] for proving itself than itself alone’ and
‘suffice[s] by itself to establish that God truly exists, that he is the supreme
good … and whatever we believe about the divine substance’. A correct analysis
of the single argument, when carefully applied, will make it possible to un-
ravel many of the puzzles and misperceptions that have vitiated the discussion
about the interpretation of Anselm’s treatise. However, procuring an accurate
idea of the single argument is not the only task that a historical introduction to
the Proslogion needs to accomplish. The analysis of the single argument itself
presented here gives rise to a major interpretive issue—a question that I call
‘the puzzle of the Proslogion’.
In the preface to the treatise, Anselm gives us to understand that he com-
posed the Proslogion in order to introduce the single argument. However, it
turns out that the Proslogion is not particularly suited for the purpose. On the
basis of the actual text of the Proslogion, that is, the twenty-six chapters in
the work, it is rather difficult to get a good idea of the argument—or to get
any idea of it, for Anselm fails to indicate in the actual text that there is a sin-
gle argument to look for. The material that Anselm added later (the preface,
some passages in the Responsio) helps towards an identification of the single
argument, but Anselm does not spell out what the argument actually is there,
either. The Proslogion is a radically contingent application of the single argu-
ment, and Anselm could have introduced the argument in question equally
well in some other way, say, by writing a dialogue or another monologion. There
emerges, hence, the following question: If Anselm’s aim in the Proslogion was
to introduce the single argument, why did he do his job so badly? Why did he
introduce the single argument in such a way that many readers would have dif-
ficulties in recognizing the argument, when it would have been easy for him to
introduce it in a clear and lucid manner?
One possible solution to the puzzle would be to say that Anselm greatly
overestimated the intelligence of his fellow humans. There may be some truth
in this supposition. However, a more interesting explanation also presents it-
self. Even if Anselm’s outspoken aim in the Proslogion was the introduction of
the single argument, it may be that he had some other unmentioned aims that
were more important, and the pursuing of these other aims affected the way
in which the outspoken aim was pursued. In what follows, I elaborate on this
idea, but before that can be done, we need to become thoroughly acquainted
with the historical context in which the Proslogion was composed.
Part 2
The Historical Context
∵
Chapter 5
Anselm and Lanfranc—the Early Years
5.1 Misperceptions in the Scholarship
Providing the relevant information about the context in which the Proslogion
was composed and published is not a straightforward task, because the current
scholarship suffers from a number of misperceptions.1 These misperceptions
concern such matters as Lanfranc’s role in Anselm’s education, the gen-
eral evaluation of Lanfranc’s intellectual contribution, the evaluation of the
Eucharistic treatise De corpore et sanguine Domini, and the exchange between
Anselm and Lanfranc in connection with the publication of the Monologion.
It is not possible to treat all these matters adequately here (in Part 2), but I will
give my reasons for disagreeing with the conventional account(s) and sketch
an alternative explanation.
Several factors have contributed to the defect in the current scholarship, but
I would like to point out three. First, some biases are common among scholars:
they are predisposed to think highly of some historical figures and less highly
of some others.2 Both Lanfranc and Anselm are among those who are looked
at appreciatively, whereas few scholars have sympathy for Berengar. Second,
the texts in the background of the Proslogion cannot be properly understood
without an advanced knowledge of several aspects of eleventh-century cul-
ture. Third and most important, one of these texts was specifically designed to
mislead those who read it. Of course, the target audience of those who com-
posed the text was among their contemporaries, but as an unintended side
effect, they have misled and continue to mislead the scholarly world of a much
later time.
1 Scholars often rely on the relevant passages in the current standard biography, R. W. Southern,
Saint Anselm: A Portrait in a Landscape (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). In
addition, see G. R. Evans, ‘Anselm’s Life, Works, and Immediate Influence’, in Brian Davies
and Brian Leftow (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Anselm (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2004), 5–31; Margaret Gibson, Lanfranc of Bec (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1978); H. E. J. Cowdrey, Lanfranc: Scholar, Monk, and Archbishop (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2003); Giles E. M. Gasper, Anselm of Canterbury and his Theological Inheritance
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004).
2 For a large part, this is a matter of academic tradition, but the religious or national back-
ground of different scholars can also be relevant here.

94 Chapter 5
The text I am referring to is the Eucharistic treatise De corpore et sanguine

Domini (On the Body and Blood of the Lord) attributed to Lanfranc.3 This trea-
tise has been and is one of the main points of reference in the discussions
about the intellectual heritage that Lanfranc passed to Anselm. Lanfranc’s con-
tribution in De corpore is usually treated highly appreciatively and the method
he uses has been found commendable. In contrast to Berengar, whose method-
ological ideas are seen as problematic, Lanfranc is said to have had a balanced
view of the respective roles of rational argument and authority in theological
inquiry. In particular, Lanfranc’s use of logic or dialectic has been praised: he
successfully rebutted Berengar’s logical arguments, and he made pioneering
use of the Aristotelian notions of substance and accident to present an inven-
tive analysis of the conversion that takes place in the Eucharistic elements.
Even though Lanfranc expressed suspicions about Anselm’s procedure in the
Monologion, according to this account, he himself had already gone a long way
towards the ‘scholastic method’.4
There is very little in this common evaluation of De corpore that is not either
blatantly false or highly problematic. The ultimate reason for this is that the
assessment of the treatise is based on a false idea about the kind of literature
that De corpore represents. It has not been appreciated that De corpore is a
3 Lanfranc of Canterbury, De corpore et sanguine Domini, Patrologia Latina (= PL) 150, 407–42.
The collations published in Jean de Montclos, Lanfranc et Bérenger: la controverse eucharis-
tique du XIe siècle (Leuven: Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense, 1971), 540–45 are to be used for
amending the text in PL. In the citations in notes, the word ‘amended’ will be used to indi-
cate such improvements. The early historical parts (407–409C, 410C–412A, 412D–413D) of De
corpore have been edited in Serta mediaevalia, ed. R. B. C. Huygens, Corpus Christianorum,
Continuatio Mediaevalis 171 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), 239–46. The English translation
On the Body and Blood of the Lord, trans. Mark G. Vaillancourt, The Fathers of the Church,
Mediaeval Continuation 10 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2009), is
to be used with discretion, as there are serious mistakes in many central passages.
4 In anglophone scholarship, the appreciative evaluation of Lanfranc has been sustained,
above all, by the influential studies by Richard Southern. See R. W. Southern, ‘Lanfranc of
Bec and Berengar of Tours’, in R. W. Hunt, W. A. Pantin, and R. W. Southern (eds.), Studies
in Medieval History presented to Frederick Maurice Powicke (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1948),
27–48; R. W. Southern, Saint Anselm and His Biographer (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1963), 12–26; Southern, Anselm: A Portrait, 14–32, 39–59. The idea that Lanfranc used
the Aristotelian notions of substance and accident to analyse the Eucharistic conversion
originates with Southern, ‘Lanfranc of Bec’, 39–41. See also Toivo J. Holopainen, Dialectic and
Theology in the Eleventh Century (Leiden: Brill, 1996), especially the chapters on Lanfranc
(44–76) and Berengar (77–118), and Toivo J. Holopainen, ‘“Lanfranc of Bec” and Berengar of
Tours’, in David Bates (ed.), Anglo-Norman Studies 34. Proceedings of the Battle Conference 2011
(Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2012), 105–21, which includes a summary treatment of some of
the main issues discussed in this chapter and Chapter 6.
Anselm and Lanfranc—the Early Years 95
carefully crafted rhetorical text and that it is rhetorical to such an extent that it
is doubtful whether it can be seen as a serious theological contribution at all.
The following chapter offers an extensive analysis of De corpore to validate a
reappraisal of the treatise from this perspective.
The re-evaluation of De corpore transforms the picture of the background of
the Proslogion. It affects our understanding of Lanfranc’s intellectual contribu-
tion and his stance regarding the method that should be used in theological
inquiry. Because De corpore is highly rhetorical in nature and, at least at some
points, aims at misleading the audience, one must be careful in using this trea-
tise as evidence for its author’s putative views. In addition, even though De cor-
pore is firmly attributed to Lanfranc, this does not mean that Lanfranc was the
real author of the treatise, for the attribution to Lanfranc could be a rhetorical
device. Related to this, I make a case for the claim that Anselm, Lanfranc’s clos-
est associate in the early 1060s, was involved in the composition of De corpore
(see 5.3). This prospect, for its part, further complicates the attempt to delin-
eate the background of the Proslogion: the re-evaluation of De corpore not only
changes the ‘landscape’ in the background of Anselm but also suggests that the
line between the ‘portrait’ of Anselm and the ‘landscape’ behind him needs to
be drawn again.
In the current discussions about Lanfranc’s intellectual heritage, some ideas
in De corpore have been used to exemplify the kinds of things that Anselm
learned in the school that Lanfranc was running at the monastery of Bec.5
The considerations presented above make this kind of approach problem-
atic. There is more, however. The grounds for the common supposition that
Anselm’s relation to Lanfranc should be seen as that of a pupil to a teacher
generally turn out to be meagre. There are several misperceptions related to
this topic in the literature.
It is the burden of Part 2 to provide essential information about the histori-
cal context in which the Proslogion was composed and published. This chapter
deals with Anselm’s relation to Lanfranc in the early 1060s when they both
lived at the monastery of Bec. Chapter 6 discusses the background, content,
nature, and aims of De corpore, and Chapter 7 discusses the faith and reason
issue from De corpore up to the eve of the publication of the Proslogion as well
as Anselm’s relation to Lanfranc in this framework.
5 Southern, ‘Lanfranc of Bec’, 39–43; Southern, Anselm and His Biographer, 21–24.
96 Chapter 5
5.2 Lanfranc—Anselm’s Teacher?
There are some well-known similarities in the life of Anselm and the life of
Lanfranc. They were both born in north-western Italy. Lanfranc was born in
Pavia c. 1010, and Anselm was born in Aosta in 1033 (or 1034). They both left
their home country when they were young, moving to Burgundy and then to
France. Lanfranc crossed the Alps around 1030–35, when he was 20–25 years
old, and Anselm did the same in 1056, when he was 23. They both ended up
in Normandy and the Benedictine monastery situated in Bec. Lanfranc came
to Bec at some date between 1042 and 1047, Anselm in 1059. They both be-
came monks at Bec and each served a lengthy term as prior of the monastery,
Lanfranc from the late 1040s until 1063, Anselm from 1063 to 1078. After their
tenures as prior, they both became abbots: Lanfranc was the founding abbot
of St. Stephen’s at Caen (1063–70) and Anselm became abbot of Bec (1078–
93). They both ended their careers in the see of Canterbury in the newly con-
quered England. Lanfranc was the first Norman archbishop there (1070–89),
and Anselm succeeded him (1093–1109) after an interval of some years when
the see was vacant.6
There was a close personal relationship between Anselm and Lanfranc for
thirty years, from Anselm’s arrival at Bec in 1059 till Lanfranc’s death in 1089,
but it was only the first four years or so (from 1059 to 1063) that Anselm and
Lanfranc lived in the same place. It is on the basis of these four common years
at the monastery of Bec that Anselm’s relationship to Lanfranc is character-
ized as that of a pupil to a teacher. This understanding of the nature of their
relation is traditional. The idea that Lanfranc was Anselm’s teacher is taken for
granted in the current literature. One important strand in the scholarly tra-
dition maintains that Lanfranc was an eminent dialectician and puts an em-
phasis on this aspect of his teaching activity.7 On the other hand, Lanfranc’s
role in Anselm’s formation is often described in more general terms as well.
All along, I assume that the characterization of Anselm as ‘Lanfranc’s pupil’
and of Lanfranc as ‘Anselm’s teacher’ requires that Lanfranc had a substantial
6 For Lanfranc, see Gibson, Lanfranc; Cowdrey, Lanfranc; Jean-Hervé Foulon, ‘The Foundation
and Early History of Le Bec’, in Benjamin Pohl and Laura L. Gathagan (eds.), A Companion
to the Abbey of Le Bec in the Central Middle Ages (11th–13th Centruries) (Leiden-Boston: Brill,
2018), 11–37, at 27–30. The conventional dating for Lanfranc’s arrival at Bec is 1042 and for his
accession to the priorate 1045; Foulon dates Lanfranc’s arrival around 1046–47 and accession
to the priorate around 1049–50. For Anselm, see Evans, ‘Anselm’s Life’, and Southern, Anselm:
A Portrait, especially xxvii–viii.
7 Southern, ‘Lanfranc of Bec’; Southern, Anselm and His Biographer, 12–26; Southern, Anselm:
A Portrait, 39–66.
role in Anselm’s education. There is no doubt that Anselm was influenced by

Lanfranc, but he undoubtedly was also influenced, say, by the founding abbot
of Bec, Herluin, and we nevertheless do not postulate a teacher-pupil relation-
ship between them.
There is one important background factor that fosters the idea that Lanfranc
had a substantial role in Anselm’s education: Lanfranc was running a school
at Bec. Our information about Lanfranc’s school and its activities is far from
precise. Apparently, taking students from outside was a means of acquiring
revenue for the monastery, and Herluin allowed Lanfranc to do that from time
to time. The school was active in the early 1060s when Anselm was at Bec.
Lanfranc’s school had acquired considerable fame in its own surroundings and
some of its students would later make notable careers.8 The most important
single source for Anselm’s early life is Vita Anselmi (The Life of St Anselm) by
Eadmer, a monk of Canterbury who was one of Anselm’s associates after 1093.
Eadmer received information from Anselm himself, and it is even possible
that Anselm inspected these parts of the biography.9 Here is what Eadmer says
about the school at Bec and Anselm’s arrival there:
After passing almost three years from this time [that is, from the time
Anselm crossed the Alps], partly in Burgundy, and partly in France, he
went to Normandy to see, to talk to, and stay with a certain master by the
name of Lanfranc, a truly good man and one of real nobility in the excel-
lence of religious life and wisdom. His lofty fame had resounded every-
where and had drawn to him the best clerks from all parts of the world.
Anselm therefore came to him and recognised the outstanding wisdom,
which shone forth in him. He placed himself under his guidance and in
a short time became the most intimate of his disciples. He gave himself
up day and night to literary studies, not only reading with Lanfranc those
things which he wished, but teaching carefully to others the things which
they required.10
8 Gibson, Lanfranc, 34–8; Cowdrey, Lanfranc, 19–24.

9 Eadmer, The Life of St Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury (Vita Anselmi), edited with intro-
duction, notes, and translation by R. W. Southern (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972). Unless
otherwise indicated, I use Southern’s translation. In Vita Anselmi II, 72, ed. and trans.
Southern, 150–51, Eadmer states that when Anselm first learned that he was working on
a biographical account, Anselm was willing to help and made some corrections. A little
later, Anselm commanded Eadmer to destroy the manuscript. Eadmer obeyed—but not
without first preparing a copy.
10 Eadmer, Vita Anselmi I, 5, ed. and trans. Southern, 8.
98 Chapter 5
Lanfranc was running a school at Bec, and Anselm was in Lanfranc’s school.
What would be more natural than to conclude that Anselm was one of those
persons who received their education in Lanfranc’s famous school?
As natural as this conclusion might appear, on second thought it proves to
be highly questionable. If Anselm had been a young boy when he came to Bec,
then the conclusion would be plausible. However, he was in fact far beyond
the normal age even for advanced education when he arrived at Bec: he was
already 25 or 26. We can assert that Anselm was educated in Lanfranc’s school
only if we can also assert that Anselm had managed to get so far without re-
ceiving any proper schooling. As someone from a well-off family in a northern
Italian town, this idea is initially implausible and would require some good
evidence for its support.
When a young man goes to meet a schoolmaster, the reason for this can
be that he is looking for education. However, there can also be other reasons.
He could be looking for job opportunities. Eadmer’s description suggests that
Anselm came to Bec for this purpose. Anselm did not come to Lanfranc to
take classes with him but ‘to see, to talk to, and stay with’ this master (videre,
alloqui et cohabitare volens). To put it differently, Anselm came to Lanfranc to
offer him his services and to become Lanfranc’s associate. There is nothing in
the passage to suggest that Anselm felt a need for education or suffered from a
lack of education when he came to Bec. The passage fails to indicate whether
Anselm took classes in the school at Bec, but there is a rather explicit state-
ment that he taught in the school. Even though Eadmer uses the word ‘disciple’
of Anselm, the emphasis is on Anselm’s special status as compared to the other
young men at the school: Anselm became Lanfranc’s closest associate. In addi-
tion, when Eadmer says that Anselm was ‘reading with Lanfranc’, this can be a
reference to some kind of tutoring, but it can equally well be a partly masked
reference to a joint literary venture in which Anselm and Lanfranc were in-
volved (cf. 5.3). All in all, the passage suggests that Anselm’s principal role in
Lanfranc’s school was that of a teacher, and it is an open question whether or
not Anselm received some further education while he was in the school of Bec.
There is one passage in Vita Anselmi that directly concerns Anselm’s edu-
cation before he came to Bec. The passage offers a summary description of
Anselm’s life between 15 and 23 years of age. The passage is preceded by a story
about Anselm’s attempts to become a monk when he ‘had not yet reached the
age of fifteen’ and how these attempts were frustrated.11 This is what Eadmer
has to say about Anselm’s life after this episode and before the events that led
to his decision to leave Italy, according to the current standard translation:
11 Eadmer, Vita Anselmi I, 3, ed. and trans. Southern, 5–6.

From that time, with health of body, youth and worldly well-being smil-
ing upon him, he began little by little to cool in the fervour of his desire
for a religious life—so much so that he began to desire to go the way of
the world rather than to leave the world for a monastic life. He gradually
turned from study, which had formerly been his chief occupation, and
began to give himself up to youthful amusements.12
It has been customary to read this passage as a description of a misspent youth:

Anselm wasted his time in idle amusements. It is due to Lanfranc’s influence
that Anselm finally got a grip on himself, so the story goes, and he made rapid
progress under Lanfranc’s instruction.13
However, it is not at all clear that the passage should be interpreted in this
way. To begin with, the passage describes changes that took place in Anselm’s
attitudes towards different things over a period of eight years. The passage
fails to specify when the major changes took place, but they are described as
gradual changes. It may be that Anselm’s attitude towards studying started to
change when he was 15, but it is equally well possible that there was a major
change only after the age of 20. This makes a big difference. Moreover, it is not
clear what the changes in Anselm’s attitudes amounted to. The last sentence in
the passage in the standard translation easily suggests that Anselm completely
abandoned scholarly pursuits and immersed himself in youthful amusements.
However, it is possible that Eadmer only wants to describe a shift in emphasis.
The last sentence could be translated alternatively as follows: ‘Little by little,
he also began to esteem study, which had been his chief occupation, less and
give himself to youthful amusements.’14 Eadmer may be saying that Anselm’s
enthusiasm for study diminished over time and he started to give more time
to youthful amusements. In addition, we do not know what kinds of ‘youthful
amusements’ Eadmer refers to. Some of the amusements of the students in the
schools in northern Italian towns could be of academic and literary charac-
ter, such as composing songs or engaging in rhetorical contests, as the treatise
Rhetorimachia (c. 1045) by Anselm’s namesake, Anselm of Besate, suggests.15

13 Cf. Southern, Anselm: A Portrait, 14: ‘[Anselm] was a complete wash-out, and rather old to
be in such a position. Lanfranc took him in hand, and in the course of a year he had given
him a direction that would last his whole life.’
14 Eadmer, Vita Anselmi I, 4, ed. Southern, 6: ‘Studium quoque litterarum in quo se magno-
pere solebat exercere, sensim postponere, ac juvenilibus ludis coepit operam dare.’ My
translation.
15 See Anselm of Besate, Rhetorimachia, ed. Karl Manitius, Monumenta Germaniae
Historica, Quellen zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 2 (Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus
Nachfolger, 1958). See also Gibson, Lanfranc, 11–15.
100 Chapter 5
Finally, it should be remembered that the attitude towards monastic life and
the attitude towards studying are two different things. The passage can per-
haps be used as evidence for the idea that Anselm’s youth was misspent from
a monastic point of view, but it does not show that he failed to use the op-
portunities for intellectual development. The impression that one gains is that
there was a long period of time in Anselm’s youth when, instead of leaving ‘the
world’ for a monastic life, he went ‘the way of the world’ and studying was his
chief occupation, but as he grew older, he increasingly took part in extracur-
ricular activities as well.
The two passages that have been quoted are the only passages directly rel-
evant to Anselm’s education in Vita Anselmi. These passages do not support
the notion that Anselm did not receive any notable schooling before he came
to Lanfranc. On the contrary, they suggest that Anselm had already been edu-
cated in Italy, making him ‘a useful acquisition’ to the ‘little school’ at Bec, as
a recent commentator has put it.16 Eadmer’s account of Anselm’s life suggests
that Anselm received his education in Italy before 1056 and served as teacher at
Bec after 1059. Even though Eadmer fails to say what Anselm did in Burgundy
and France between 1056 and 1059, it is plausible to think that he spent much
of his time teaching and studying, as Lanfranc had done in the corresponding
phase of his career.
There are also other grounds for holding that Anselm got the major part of
his education in Italy. From the usual discussions of Anselm and Lanfranc, one
may acquire the impression that Lanfranc’s school was in the forefront of the
study of the liberal arts at that time. This was certainly not the case. Lanfranc’s
school was an important institution in its own environment, that is, Normandy
and the surrounding area, because there were few schools offering similar edu-
cation in that part of Europe. However, the forefront was elsewhere—in the
places where Lanfranc received the most important part of his own education.
The best education in the liberal arts in Anselm’s youth would have been avail-
able in the schools of his home country.17 It appears that Anselm made good
use of that opportunity. He had skills and competence that he could hardly
have acquired at Lanfranc’s school. Anselm had a superb command of Latin
and he was capable of using a rhetorical style which resembles the style of
Italian authors like Peter Damian. These are skills that demand years of regular
16 See Evans, ‘Anselm’s Life’, 8–9.

17 See Gibson, Lanfranc, 11–15, for the schools of northern Italy and their concentration on
the three linguistic arts of the trivium, that is, grammar, dialectic or logic, and rhetoric.
It is worth remembering that one of the first universities in Western Europe was that in
Bologna, founded towards the end of the eleventh century (perhaps in 1088).
training under competent masters. As for logic or dialectic, Anselm’s produc-

tion shows that he was a very able dialectician (see also 4.1), and he represents
a more advanced stage of the art than Lanfranc does.18 There is an asymmetry
between what Lanfranc could teach about dialectic and what Anselm did learn
about it, and the best explanation is that Anselm acquired his knowledge of
dialectic before he came to Bec. Some features of Anselm’s thought suggest
that he had also received theological preparation in his home country. Italian
texts like Anselm of Besate’s Rhetorimachia and Peter Damian’s De divina om-
nipotentia show that there had been discussions about divine foreknowledge,
necessity, free choice, and other related themes in the Italian schools. Anselm
appears to be familiar with the same discussions, and his views converge with
those of Damian at some important points.19 Anselm was not a tabula rasa
when he came to Bec, but a brilliant young scholar who knew quite a lot about
the latest developments in the centres of learning.
These considerations invalidate the idea that Lanfranc could be character-
ized as Anselm’s teacher, since it appears that Anselm was already a mature
scholar when he arrived at Bec. Nevertheless, there still appears to be the pos-
sibility that Lanfranc added something substantial to Anselm’s education. As
mentioned, there is the strand of scholarship that emphasizes Lanfranc’s emi-
nence as a teacher of dialectic. It is often claimed that Lanfranc’s contribution
to Anselm’s formation should be sought in this area: Lanfranc taught dialectic
or logic to Anselm and, even more important, he taught how the teachings of
dialectic can be applied in theological investigation in a manner that is fruit-
ful and responsible.20 If this were true, then we would have grounds for saying
that Lanfranc played a substantial role in Anselm’s education.
As already indicated, the case of dialectic is not an exception to the gen-
eral pattern of Anselm’s educational experience. Lanfranc may have been a
renowned teacher of dialectic on the outskirts of Latin civilization, but the
traces of dialectic in his literary production show that he was no pioneer in
the study of this art. This applies whether we count De corpore as Lanfranc’s
work or not. As mentioned, Anselm represents a more advanced stage of dia-
lectic than Lanfranc, and the best explanation for this is that he was already
trained in dialectic before he came to Bec. What is left is the suggestion that
18 S uzanne J. Nelis, ‘What Lanfranc Taught, What Anselm Learned’, Haskins Society Journal 2
(1990), 75–82. See also Gibson, Lanfranc, 49.
19 Toivo J. Holopainen, ‘Future Contingents in the Eleventh Century’, in Vesa Hirvonen et al.
(eds.), Mind and Modality: Studies in the History of Philosophy in Honour of Simo Knuuttila
(Leiden: Brill, 2006), 103–20, especially 113–19.
20 Southern, ‘Lanfranc of Bec’; Southern, Anselm and His Biographer, 12–26; Southern,
Anselm: A Portrait, 39–66.
102 Chapter 5
Lanfranc taught Anselm a responsible way of applying this art in the service
of theology, but this idea proves to be unfounded as well. When we look at
how Lanfranc applies the techniques and doctrines of dialectic in theological
contexts, the results are meagre. In his commentaries to Paul’s epistles, there
are some modest examples of argument analysis and a few miscellaneous
comments here and there.21 Lanfranc’s celebrated rebuttal of Berengar’s logi-
cal arguments in De corpore 7 turns out to be an example of sophistic misuse
of dialectic,22 and the evidence for the claim that Lanfranc’s analysis of the
Eucharist is based on the distinction between substance and accident can-
not withstand scrutiny.23 The analysis of De corpore to be presented below
(Chapter 6) suggests that the author of the treatise was actually deeply con-
scious of some basic dialectical considerations, but it also makes clear that De
corpore represents irresponsible and dishonest use of the liberal arts. There is
no reason, however, to think that De corpore reflects the general practices at
Lanfranc’s school.
5.3 The Authorship of De corpore
Eadmer’s Vita Anselmi is a portrait of a person whom the author would like
to see canonized as a saint. As in much of the modern scholarship, there is
a strong bias towards Anselm in Vita Anselmi, and it is combined with a bias
towards Lanfranc and towards Canterbury. When Eadmer describes the years
Anselm and Lanfranc spent together at Bec, he makes sure that the two future
archbishops of Canterbury appear in a favourable light. This bias affects the
way Eadmer tells his story, but it also affects the choice of material. In the usual
modern description of Anselm’s relation to Lanfranc, the treatise De corpore
takes pride of place.24 In Eadmer’s presentation, this treatise is conspicuously
absent: there is not a single word about De corpore or about the Eucharistic
controversy with Berengar in the context mentioned or anywhere else in Vita
Anselmi. The omission is significant, and the re-evaluation of De corpore makes
it understandable why Eadmer kept silent about the issue. Eadmer himself was
an intelligent person, and he probably could appreciate the kind of rhetorical
21 See Gibson, Lanfranc, 50–54; Holopainen, Dialectic and Theology, 46, 47–59; Ann Collins,
Teacher in Faith and Virtue: Lanfranc of Bec’s Commentary on Saint Paul (Leiden-Boston:
Brill, 2007), 104–12.
22 See Gibson, Lanfranc, 84–88; Holopainen, Dialectic and Theology, 59–67. See also 6.3.
23 See Holopainen, Dialectic and Theology, 69–72, for a critical discussion. See also note 5 in
6.1 and note 33 in 6.3.
24 Evans, ‘Anselm’s Life’, is an exception: she does not mention De corpore.
game that De corpore represents. However, telling the truth about the nature
of the treatise would have compromised Lanfranc’s integrity, and saying some-
thing else might have provoked unwanted comments. What is more, it was not
only Lanfranc’s integrity that was at stake, but there is a very real possibility
that Anselm was involved in the composition of De corpore, and Eadmer was
in a position to know that.
According to Eadmer’s account, Anselm came to Bec because he wanted
‘to see, to talk to, and stay with … Lanfranc’. A plausible interpretation of this
is that Anselm wished to become Lanfranc’s associate and came to offer him
his services. As explained in the preceding section, Anselm soon became in-
volved in teaching in the school of Bec. However, Anselm’s arrival at Bec coin-
cides with the events in the immediate background of De corpore, which raises
the question about any possible connection.25 A synod in Rome in the spring
of 1059 had dealt with Berengar’s teaching on the Eucharist. After the synod,
Berengar composed a short piece known as Scriptum contra synodum in which
he fiercely attacks the synod’s decision.26 Berengar accuses the synod of pro-
claiming a vulgar view of the Eucharist, a view that he also characterizes as
‘the opinion, or rather folly, of the rabble, of Paschasius, and of Lanfranc’.27 The
Paschasius who is mentioned here is the ninth-century theologian Paschasius
Radbertus.28 Thus, Lanfranc is the one contemporary thinker that Berengar
singles out as a proponent of the vulgar view, and he had presented similar al-
legations before. Berengar composed Scriptum contra synodum soon after the
synod and it was in circulation during the latter half of 1059. This is, roughly,
when Anselm came to Bec. Did Anselm come to Lanfranc only to offer his ser-
vices as a teacher, or was there also something else that he was willing to do
for his compatriot? Moreover, when Anselm ‘gave himself up day and night to
literary studies … reading with Lanfranc those things which he wished’,29 what
exactly was he doing? The evidence that there is does not allow definitive an-
swers. There is the intriguing possibility that Anselm came to Lanfranc to offer
his services in the fight against Berengar, but there is little to go by to argue
25 Southern, Anselm and His Biographer, 20, surmises that ‘the reputation which Lanfranc
was making in this controversy [with Berengar] … drew Anselm to Bec.’ For reasons which
will be discussed later in this section, it is unlikely that this was the case.
26 See Gibson, Lanfranc, 63–71; Cowdrey, Lanfranc, 59–64.
27 The relevant passage is quoted by Lanfranc in De corpore 4, 412D, ed. Huygens, 244, lines
152–54. See also 6.2, where the background of De corpore is discussed.
28 Gibson, Lanfranc, 74–76; Cowdrey, Lanfranc, 60.
29 Eadmer, Vita Anselmi I, 5, ed. and trans. Southern, 8. See also 5.2.
104 Chapter 5
this point.30 However, a case can be made for the claim that Anselm was in-
volved, and even heavily involved, in the composition of De corpore.
De corpore makes it eminently clear that the treatise should be attributed
to Lanfranc. In the opening of the treatise, the ‘author’ identifies himself as
‘Lanfranc, through God’s mercy Catholic’,31 and ‘Lanfranc’ is also the name
that the ‘author’ takes on in the peculiar kind of ‘disputation’ between him-
self and Berengar that constitutes the main part of the treatise.32 Historical
evidence firmly connects De corpore to Lanfranc of Bec, and it can hardly
be disputed that he is the moral author of the treatise. However, it does not
follow that the historical Lanfranc is the sole author—or even the principal
author—of De corpore because the attribution of the treatise to him can be a
rhetorical device.
Lanfranc composed and published De corpore sometime between 1059 and
1070, but scholars disagree about the exact year(s). The terminus post quem is
determined by the synod in which Berengar’s view had been condemned, and
we have to allow some weeks between the synod in Rome and Lanfranc’s being
informed of the text that Berengar wrote against the synod. Hence, the compo-
sition of De corpore may have started in the summer of 1059 at the earliest. The
treatise was not completed before the summer of 1061, since Pope Nicholas
and Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida are mentioned there as deceased.33
Because reacting to a current polemical text like Scriptum contra synodum be-
comes less and less meaningful as time elapses, it would appear reasonable
to believe that De corpore was completed not much later than 1061.34 On the
other hand, the latest definitive terminus ante quem for the treatise is as late as
1070. It is based on a letter which Lanfranc sent to Pope Alexander II in 1072.
The pope had requested Lanfranc to send a copy of De corpore to him, and in
the letter which accompanies the copy, Lanfranc states that he had sent the
text in question to Berengar when he still was abbot at Caen.35 For this reason,
30 We do not know when exactly Anselm arrived at Bec, and we do not know how widely
Berengar circulated Scriptum contra synodum. If Anselm was in France in the summer of
1059, he might have learned about the Scriptum when it was still fresh.
31 De corpore 1, 407A, ed. Huygens, 239, lines 1–2: ‘Lanfrancus misericordia dei catholicus
Beringerio catholicae aecclesiae adversario.’
32 De corpore 2–17, 409D–430A. See also 6.2–6.4.
33 See Margaret Gibson, ‘Letters and Charters Relating to Berengar of Tours’, in P. Ganz,
R. B. C. Huygens, and F. Niewöhner (eds.), Auctoritas und Ratio. Studien zu Berengar von
Tours (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1990), 5–23, at 14 and 16.
34 Gibson, ‘Letters and Charters’, 14 and 16. See also Southern, Anselm: A Portrait, 43–44.
35 Lanfranc, Ep. 4, to Pope Alexander II, in The Letters of Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury,
ed. and trans. Helen Clover and Margaret Gibson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 56:
many scholars date De corpore to the period when Lanfranc was at Caen, that
is, between c. 1063 and 1070.36
However, Lanfranc’s letter to Alexander is problematic as evidence. When
we read it closely, it turns out that Lanfranc does not say anything about when
De corpore was composed, or published for the first time. He only states that
he ‘sent’ (transmisi) the text in question to Berengar within a certain period of
time. It is also remarkable that Lanfranc does not assert his authorship of De
corpore here: the focus is on the sending and not on the composing. Lanfranc,
of course, had good reason to distance himself from De corpore when he sent
it to Pope Alexander. De corpore had been composed for a local audience in
Normandy and the surrounding area. Lanfranc did not want anyone in the
papal entourage to think that he aspired to mislead the elite of the Church
through the treatise published in his name. If its nature was not already known
in the curia, a specialist like Cardinal Hildebrand, who knew the history of the
Berengarian affair and had given thought to the doctrinal aspects of the matter,
would not need more than one reading to find out its true nature.37 As for the
dating implied in the letter to Alexander, one need not put much weight on it.
If Anselm was involved in the composition of De corpore, Lanfranc perhaps
intentionally gave the wrong idea of the date to protect his friend. It is also pos-
sible to seek a compromise between Lanfranc’s letter and the other evidence
by maintaining that De corpore was composed at Bec between 1059 and 1063
but published only after Lanfranc moved to Caen to supervise the foundation
works of a new monastery there. It is reasonable to believe that De corpore was
composed, at least for the most part, when Lanfranc was at Bec.
De corpore does not fit into the general picture of Lanfranc’s literary and
other activity. Even though Berengar had continually singled out Lanfranc as
the proponent of the vulgar view among his contemporaries, Lanfranc was not
an active agent in the Berengarian affair either before De corpore or after it.
A decade earlier, by 1049, Berengar had already acquired the impression that
Lanfranc supported the view he opposed, but there appears to be no histori-
cal evidence about what Lanfranc had done to give rise to this impression.38
Significantly, the report on the history of the affair that is given in De corpore
‘Epistolam quam Beringerio scismatico dum adhuc Cadomensi cenobio praeessem trans-
misi paternitati uestrae sicut precepistis transmittere curaui.’
36 For example, Montclos, Lanfranc et Bérenger, 196–97, 249.
37 Cardinal Hildebrand, the future Pope Gregory VII, had directed the investigation into
Berengar’s teaching at the synod of Tours in 1054. See Montclos, Lanfranc et Bérenger,
149–62.
38 Montclos, Lanfranc et Bérenger, 53–56; Gibson, Lanfranc, 64–67; Cowdrey, Lanfranc, 38–
40, 59–61.
106 Chapter 5
makes no mention of this. Instead, the report claims that Lanfranc gave an
improvised statement of his Eucharistic views in a synod in Rome (?) in 1050
(?), but there is reason to be suspicious of this part of the report.39 There is
no evidence that Lanfranc had any notable role in any other synod related
to the matter,40 and De corpore is his only writing on the affair. When he was
archbishop of Canterbury, Lanfranc showed unwillingness to engage in dis-
cussion about Berengar’s views. At some date between 1073 and 1078, three
French churchmen sent him a letter and expressed their wish to come to
England to discuss Berengar’s views on Christology with Lanfranc. Lanfranc
dissuaded them from coming, using his busyness as an excuse.41 The compo-
sition and publication of De corpore is an isolated and unexpected event in
Lanfranc’s career.
What is more, there is a striking qualitative difference between De corpore
and other works that Lanfranc has left. De corpore has been characterized as
‘Lanfranc’s only excursion into theology proper’.42 There are theological re-
marks in his commentaries on Paul’s epistles and elsewhere, but De corpore
is the only one of his publications that includes an extended discussion of
a theological issue. The range of authoritative writings that are used is con-
siderably larger in De corpore than in the commentaries on Paul. In face of
the qualitative difference between De corpore and the Pauline commentaries,
a suggestion has been made recently that the latter should be considered as
a very early work, deriving from the period when Lanfranc had just entered
39 De corpore 4, 413A–B, ed. Huygens, 244–45, lines 155–82. Lanfranc’s account is impressive
but vague. For example, Lanfranc fails to specify where and when the synod he is talking
about was held. No other source confirms Lanfranc’s account. See Holopainen, ‘“Lanfranc
of Bec” and Berengar of Tours’, 117, note 47.
40 Lanfranc was present at the synod of Vercelli in September 1050 but without any par-
ticular role. Montclos, Lanfranc et Bérenger, 64–83; Cowdrey, Lanfranc, 61–62. As for the
1059 synod of Rome, Montclos, Lanfranc et Bérenger, 43–44, and Gibson, Lanfranc, 69–70,
argue that Lanfranc was not present, whereas Southern, Anselm: A Portrait, 25–28, argues
that he was, and Cowdrey, Lanfranc, 42, concludes that Lanfranc’s presence is ‘on balance,
more likely than not’. Contrary to what Southern and Cowdrey assume, it is not impor-
tant whether Lanfranc had the correct idea about the details of how Berengar’s condem-
nation took place. The crucial piece of evidence is that Berengar treats Lanfranc as an
outsider who depends on reports that he has received, not as an eyewitness. Berengar
of Tours, Rescriptum contra Lanfrannum I, ed. R. B. C. Huygens, Corpus Christianorum,
Continuatio Mediaevalis 84 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1988), 35, line 15: ‘quod mendaciter ad te
pervenit’. Even if Lanfranc were present in Rome in 1059, he did not have any notable role
in the proceedings.
41 Cowdrey, Lanfranc, 65–66.
42 Gibson, Lanfranc, 62.
monastic life (c. 1042–45).43 This is not a workable solution because other con-
siderations support a much later date, but the qualitative difference which has
prompted the suggestion is a real issue. As a matter of fact, the qualitative dif-
ference between De corpore and Lanfranc’s other publications is greater than
scholars have suspected because they have not been aware of the complex rhe-
torical aspirations of De corpore.
One more consideration which speaks against Lanfranc being the sole au-
thor of De corpore is that of the leisure needed for a demanding literary work.
De corpore is a carefully crafted treatise the composition of which must have
taken a considerable amount of work and time.44 Lanfranc’s busyness did
not begin when he entered the see of Canterbury. In the early 1060s, he was
already one of the most influential persons in Norman ecclesiastical circles
and an adviser to Duke William. After 1063, he supervised the construction of
a new monastery, but there were extensive building projects going on at Bec
as well. The school of Bec was at its height in the early 1060s and Lanfranc
is supposed to have been teaching there.45 How did he simply find time to
compose De corpore?
As such, these difficulties do not yet establish that Lanfranc did not compose
De corpore alone. However, when we combine the considerations mentioned
with the fact that Lanfranc had a highly qualified associate working with him
in the early 1060s, we start to have the ingredients for a case. The associate in
question was, of course, Anselm. It was argued above (5.2) that Anselm was
already a mature scholar when he came to Bec. Even if this was not the case,
he was nevertheless a bright young man with exceptional intellectual ability,
and it did not take long before he was capable of acting as a teacher. Anselm
would also, later in life, publish many works that discuss complex theological
issues within a rational framework. In addition to his talent and his compe-
tence, Anselm could offer to Lanfranc his time, which Lanfranc could use as
he desired.
Because Anselm was Lanfranc’s closest associate in the early 1060s, it is dif-
ficult to see how he could have avoided becoming involved in the composition
of De corpore. Therefore, it seems reasonable to think that De corpore was born
as a fruit of the collaboration between Lanfranc and Anselm. This includes,
43 Collins, Teacher, 196–202. One of Collins’s main arguments is that Lanfranc must have
adopted a definitive point of view on the Eucharist by the mid-1050s and ‘the commen-
tary does not demonstrate an author capable of such pronouncements on such a highly
charged issue’ (199).
44 De corpore is meant to give the impression of a hastily written spontaneous work but it
actually is a calculated rhetorical attack.
45 Cowdrey, Lanfranc, 15–24.
108 Chapter 5
nevertheless, a whole range of possibilities. At one end is the view that

Lanfranc was the real author and Anselm assisted him with various details. At
the other end is the view that Anselm was the author and Lanfranc provided
him with material by explaining his own thoughts about the Eucharist. I find
it quite plausible to think that Anselm was the principal author of De corpore.
The case here is, nevertheless, for a more modest claim: that Anselm was ‘heav-
ily involved’ in the composition of De corpore. This will suffice to explain the
qualitative difference between De corpore and Lanfranc’s other works as well
as resolve the other difficulties.
If Anselm was heavily involved in the composition of De corpore and per-
haps was its principal author, why does the treatise not carry Anselm’s name?
One of the main points in the treatise is to vindicate ‘the folly of Lanfranc’
(vecordia Lanfranci) against Berengar’s criticism, and it is appropriate that it
is ‘Lanfranc’ who does this. Related to this, the treatise is, for an important
part, based on Lanfranc’s genuine views.46 The attribution of the treatise to
Lanfranc was also expedient in other respects, for it secured that the treatise
would be well received by its first audience. In the early 1060s, Lanfranc was
an esteemed intellectual and ecclesiastic in Normandy whereas Anselm was a
newcomer with no particular status.
There are some minor considerations that support the view that Anselm
had a major role in the composition of De corpore. Because of its cold-blooded
use of rhetorical devices, De corpore has been compared to the little work
Rhetorimachia, which Anselm of Besate composed in northern Italy c. 1045.47
This comparison is elucidating in many respects, and it may be that that the
Rhetorimachia illustrates the spirit of the schools in northern Italian towns
during Lanfranc’s formative period, even though it was written by someone
at least ten years younger. However, Lanfranc had been in a different kind of
environment for twenty-five years or more. By contrast, Anselm’s memories of
the Italian schools were still quite fresh at the time when De corpore was com-
posed. Even though there is no doubt that Lanfranc was also capable of being
quite cunning, the highly elaborate but ruthless use of rhetoric in De corpore
rather points in the direction of his young compatriot.
Eadmer records some things which Anselm had said about his common
years with Lanfranc at Bec. Anselm hesitated over whether he should stay at
Bec because he feared that he would be left in Lanfranc’s shadow.48 If Anselm
46 See 6.5, especially note 69.

47 See Gibson, Lanfranc, 13–14, 85.
48 Eadmer, Vita Anselmi I, 5, ed. and trans. Southern, 9: ‘Becci supereminens prudentia
Lanfranci … me … nichili valere comprobabit.’
played a major role in the composition of De corpore, it is understandable that

he had such feelings. Related to the same context, Eadmer reports Anselm as
having said that he ‘was not yet tamed’.49 The Eucharistic controversy is not at
all mentioned in Vita Anselmi. Furthermore, Anselm was very reserved about
issues related to the Eucharist during his whole career. He never says a word
about the nature of the Eucharistic conversion. This is odd because the inter-
pretation of the Eucharistic doctrine was one of the major theological issues of
the period. It may be, though, that Lanfranc’s explicit connection to De corpore
suffices to explain Anselm’s reserved attitude.
To conclude this chapter, the conventional picture of the relation between
Anselm and Lanfranc in the early 1060s needs to be corrected in important
ways. The evidence does not support the idea that Lanfranc could be char-
acterized as Anselm’s teacher in any strong sense. Lanfranc was a renowned
master in one part of Europe, but there is reason to believe that Anselm had re-
ceived a superior education elsewhere before he came to Lanfranc. It is unlike-
ly that Lanfranc could add anything significant to Anselm’s formal education.
Anselm was not really Lanfranc’s pupil, but he was Lanfranc’s closest associate
in the early 1060s. Because of his role as Lanfranc’s closest associate, it is likely
that Anselm was involved in the composition of the treatise De corpore that
Lanfranc published c. 1063, and even heavily involved. For this reason, De cor-
pore should not be seen only as part of the ‘landscape’ behind Anselm: it needs
to be taken into account in the ‘portrait’ of Anselm as a young man who was
not yet tamed. However, I will not labour this point in what follows, and my
interpretation of De corpore and Anselm’s early treatises does not depend on it.
49 Eadmer, Vita Anselmi I, 5, ed. and trans. Southern, 9: ‘Necdum eram edomitus …’
Chapter 6
Reappraisal of De corpore
6.1 A Rhetorical Treatise on the Eucharist
The next step in the endeavour to describe the background of the Proslogion
is to have a close look at the treatise De corpore et sanguine Domini attributed
to Lanfranc.1 It is important to achieve a good understanding of this treatise,
for two reasons. First, it is essential for being able to analyse some central is-
sues in the immediate background of the Proslogion: how the faith and reason
issue was perceived in Anselm’s environment at the time when he composed
the Proslogion, and what happened between Anselm and Lanfranc in connec-
tion with the publication of the Monologion. These topics will be pursued in
the following chapter. Second, even though De corpore and the Proslogion are
quite different works, they have in common that they cannot be properly un-
derstood without taking into account the viewpoint of rhetoric. The analysis
of De corpore shows that the author of this treatise was capable of carrying
through a very complex rhetorical undertaking. Familiarity with this under-
taking makes it easier for us to take into account and appreciate the possibil-
ity of rhetorical argumentation in and around the Monologion and Proslogion.
Even though I find it probable that Anselm was involved in the composition of
De corpore (5.3), I speak much of the time as if Lanfranc was the sole author of
the treatise. This should be seen as a literary device which is used for the sake
of simplicity.
The observation that there are rhetorical features in De corpore is not a
new one. Margaret Gibson in particular has drawn attention to this aspect of
Lanfranc’s treatise. Lanfranc works to undermine the credibility of his oppo-
nent, Berengar, by presenting unsubstantiated accusations concerning the lat-
ter’s methods, wits, and morals. Lanfranc misinterprets his opponent’s sayings
so often and so badly that it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that he does it
on purpose. Gibson has also pointed out the parallelism between De corpore
and Anselm of Besate’s Rhetorimachia, a treatise she sees as elucidative of the
spirit of the Italian schools at the time. According to Gibson’s evaluation, many
of Lanfranc’s manoeuvres in De corpore can be explained as ‘the accepted rhe-
torical practice of the time’ (85), but there are also passages where ‘Lanfranc is
1 For the editions of De corpore and the mode of referencing them as well as Vaillancourt’s
English translation, see note 3 in 5.1.

Reappraisal of De corpore 111
guilty of sharp practice by his own standards as much as ours’ (86). A case in
point would be the celebrated passage where Lanfranc criticizes Berengar for
having presented an invalid syllogism; the syllogism that Lanfranc criticizes
turns out to be of his own making.2 However, it has been believed that these
rhetorical features are only superficial and there is a sound core underneath.
The seriousness of De corpore as a theological contribution has not been
questioned. I seek to show that the effects of a dubious way of using rheto-
ric in De corpore go much deeper than previously conceived, into the core of
Lanfranc’s contribution.3
There is some circumstantial evidence that casts doubt on the seriousness
of De corpore as a theological contribution. Even though De corpore is directly
related to the transactions of a papal synod in Rome in 1059, Lanfranc failed to
send the treatise to the papal curia on his own initiative. When he was asked
to send it, he did comply but he also distanced himself from his treatise. When
Eadmer describes the common years of Anselm and Lanfranc at Bec in Vita
Anselmi, he neglects mentioning the Eucharistic affair. Anselm of Canterbury
never refers to De corpore in his extant writings, and he is careful not to say
anything about what happens to the Eucharistic elements at the consecration.
(For these points, see 5.3.)
The real test for the rhetorical reading of De corpore, however, is in the anal-
ysis of the treatise itself. To establish that Lanfranc plays a rhetorical game in
De corpore, I offer an analysis of De corpore which describes some central fea-
tures of the game. Because of the complexity of the aspirations of the treatise,
the analysis will be far from exhaustive. The focus is on two topics. On the one
hand, I analyse De corpore as a reply to Berengar’s Scriptum contra synodum,
that is, his attack against the synod of Rome in 1059. On the other hand, the
focus is on the interpretation of Eucharistic doctrine, especially the ontologi-
cal aspects of it. These topics are closely interconnected.
In the current literature, there are competing accounts of Lanfranc’s view
of the Eucharistic doctrine. Richard Southern famously claimed that Lanfranc
made pioneering use of the Aristotelian notions of substance and accident to
describe the change in the Eucharistic elements and that Lanfranc was actually
2 Margaret Gibson, Lanfranc of Bec (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 84–88.

3 See also Toivo J. Holopainen, ‘“Lanfranc of Bec” and Berengar of Tours’, in David Bates (ed.),
Anglo-Norman Studies 34. Proceedings of the Battle Conference 2011 (Woodbridge: Boydell
Press, 2012), 105–21. The role of rhetorical argumentation in a later phase of the Berengarian
controversy has been accentuated in Charles M. Radding and Francis Newton, Theology,
Rhetoric, and Politics in the Eucharistic Controversy, 1078–1079: Alberic of Monte Cassino
against Berengar of Tours (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003).
112 Chapter 6
the first to formulate the doctrine of transubstantiation.4 Southern’s explana-

tion continues to be popular, but the evidence for it cannot withstand criti-
cal inspection.5 A related explanation maintains that Lanfranc formulated the
doctrine of transubstantiation using the notions of ‘essence’ and ‘appearance’:
the bread converts into Christ’s body as far as the essence is concerned, but the
appearance and some other qualities of the bread and wine are preserved. This
explanation corresponds, roughly at least, to Gibson’s understanding of the
matter. It is based on the passage in which Lanfranc presents his official state-
ment on the Eucharist in De corpore.6 In the extensive analysis of De corpore
presented by Jean de Montclos, however, we find a different, more complex
theory.7 The main idea in the theory can be expressed roughly as follows: The
bread converts in the consecration into a piece of flesh that has the same es-
sence as the flesh in Christ’s body. This piece of flesh, which is hidden under
the appearance of the bread, is a sacred sign signifying Christ’s historical body,
which once suffered on the Cross and is now situated in heaven.
The existence of the competing analyses by Montclos and Gibson—
Montclos comes first in the chronological order—poses a problem to a reader
of De corpore. It seems that De corpore indeed assumes and implies the kind
of complex theory that Montclos uncovered. However, Lanfranc does not
present this theory anywhere in De corpore in an explicit manner, and it is a
rather strange theory. Gibson’s analysis of Lanfranc’s position is appealing, be-
cause the theory she imputes to Lanfranc is simple and appears to make sense.
However, Gibson does not point out any mistake in Montclos’s reading of De
corpore—she fails to comment on it even though she is aware of it. Further,
the passages which are central to Gibson’s analysis can be interpreted starting
from Montclos’s analysis as well.
4 R. W. Southern, ‘Lanfranc of Bec and Berengar of Tours’, in R. W. Hunt, W. A. Pantin, and
R. W. Southern (eds.), Studies in Medieval History presented to Frederick Maurice Powicke
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1948), 27–48, at 39–41; R. W. Southern, Saint Anselm and His
Biographer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963), 21–22; Southern, Saint Anselm: A
Portrait in a Landscape (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 47–50.
5 Toivo J. Holopainen, Dialectic and Theology in the Eleventh Century (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 69–
72. See also 6.3, note 33. Jean de Montclos, Lanfranc et Bérenger: la controverse eucharistique
du XIe siècle (Leuven: Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense, 1971), 447, note 5 (continued on 448),
rejects Southern’s analysis, whereas Gibson, Lanfranc, and H. E. J. Cowdrey, Lanfranc: Scholar,
Monk, and Archbishop (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), fail to comment on it.
6 Gibson, Lanfranc, 88–91. Lanfranc presents his official statement on the Eucharist in De cor-
pore 18, 430A–C. The passage will be analysed in 6.5.
7 Montclos, Lanfranc et Bérenger, 346–91. Montclos’s analysis has been followed, more or less
closely, by Holopainen, Dialectic and Theology, 67–68; by Cowdrey, Lanfranc, 70–73; and by
Mark G. Vaillancourt, ‘Introduction’ to his translation of De corpore, 3–25, at 4–11.
The analysis presented in this chapter solves the difficulties in identifying

Lanfranc’s theory by interpreting De corpore as a completely rhetorical trea-
tise. Lanfranc did not compose De corpore to express his thoughts. Instead,
he composed it, or had it composed, to create impressions that suit his pur-
poses. (De corpore also strives to affect attitudes and emotions, but the most
important aspect of its effect, for this investigation, are the impressions that
it produces.) The complex theory which Montclos uncovered really is there in
De corpore because Lanfranc wanted the formal recipient of the treatise, that
is, Berengar of Tours, to think that he holds such a theory. At the same time,
he attempted to bring it about that some other parts of the audience will get
a vaguer idea about what his position is. The rhetorical skill of the author of
De corpore comes out in his ability to bring together the different objectives
in a single treatment. In this account, De corpore, as such, does not reveal any-
thing about what Lanfranc really thought. However, when the ideas expressed
in De corpore coincide with the ideas that Lanfranc has expressed elsewhere,
this constitutes a reason for thinking that De corpore reflects Lanfranc’s genu-
ine position at those points.8
6.2 The Background and Structure of De corpore
In order to understand what takes place in De corpore, it is good to begin with

a brief description of the state of the Eucharistic doctrine in the eleventh cen-
tury. The groundbreaking monograph Lanfranc et Bérenger (1971) by Jean de
Montclos offers a good starting point for this, but more research in the area
would be needed. It is part of traditional Christian teaching that Christ is pres-
ent in the Eucharist, and all the participants in the eleventh-century discus-
sions would be willing to affirm this much. The question is about the mode of
Christ’s presence.9
Many eleventh-century thinkers understood Christ’s presence in the
Eucharist to be a concrete, material reality: at the consecration, the bread turns
into a particle of Christ’s flesh and the wine into a small amount of his blood.
Montclos varyingly calls such views ‘carnalist’ or ‘ultrarealist’.10 The proponents
8 For remarks concerning the Eucharist in Lanfranc’s other works, see Montclos, Lanfranc
et Bérenger, 326–40. See also note 69 in 6.5.
9 For the doctrinal background of the Berengarian controversy, see Montclos, Lanfranc et
Bérenger, especially 22–29, 448–60; Radding and Newton, Theology, Rhetoric, and Politics,
1–31; Gibson, Lanfranc, 71–81; Cowdrey, Lanfranc, 59–60.
10 See especially Montclos, Lanfranc et Bérenger, 590, ‘Formulation ultra-réaliste de la croy-
ance eucharistique’, with references to earlier parts of the work. On page 25, it is called
114 Chapter 6
of the carnalist view saw themselves as carrying on the Catholic tradition of

the Eucharist, and they looked at the ninth-century Paschasius Radbertus as
an important spokesman for that tradition. There was no single agreed-upon
definition of the carnalist view, but three ideas were widely shared. The idea
that the bread and wine convert into Christ’s flesh and blood in a material way
was one of them. In addition, it was maintained that the flesh and blood on the
altar are the flesh and blood of Christ’s historical body, which was born of the
Virgin, suffered on the Cross, and ascended to heaven.11 Third, even though
the communicants usually perceive bread and wine, these should be taken as
veils under which the flesh and blood are hidden. There were reports about
miracles in which God had taken the veils away so that the true nature of the
flesh and blood could be seen.12
It was the carnalist view to which Berengar objected. He started to protest
against it in the late 1040s, and his claims were discussed with varying results
in some ecclesiastical gatherings in the early 1050s.13 Lanfranc was involved
in the Eucharistic affair from the beginning, because Berengar identified him
as the protagonist of the carnalist view among his contemporaries. It is not
clear what Lanfranc had done to draw Berengar’s attention to himself (cf. 5.3.).
Berengar rejected the carnalist interpretation of the nature of Christ’s pres-
ence and proposed an intellectual or spiritual interpretation of the Eucharist
in its stead. In an early letter, written around 1053, he formulated the matter as
follows:
The antagonists, then, [that is,] the rabble and Paschasius and Lanfranc
and whoever there are who rave with the rabble, assert the following
case: the bread and wine remain on the altar until the consecration, but
through the force of the consecration the bread and wine are changed
through their own destruction or consumption in a sensory fashion
into a small portion of Christ’s flesh and blood. My case or rather that
of the scriptures is as follows: the bread and wine on the Lord’s table
‘la formulation carnaliste’. According to Montclos, the ultrarealist view appears in many
early medieval authors and texts, including Paschasius Radbertus, Durand of Troarn and
other early anti-Berengarian writers, the 1059 synod of Rome, and Lanfranc.
11 This was taken to be a central point in the Paschasian teaching. Montclos, Lanfranc et
Bérenger, 448–51.
12 See, for example, Durand of Troarn, Liber de corpore et sanguine Christi, Patrologia Latina
149, 1375–424, especially 1418–21 (Part 8), which includes several reports of such alleged
miracles. Durand wrote his treatise c. 1053.
13 See Montclos, Lanfranc et Bérenger, 30–162; Gibson, Lanfranc, 64–69; Cowdrey, Lanfranc,
38–40, 59–63.
are converted, not in a sensory fashion but intellectually, not through

consumption but through assumption, not into a small portion of flesh,
against the writings, but, according to the writings, into the whole of
Christ’s body and blood.14
In Berengar’s analysis, his interpretation differs from the popular carnalist

view on three points: (1) he denies that the bread and wine are destroyed at
the consecration; (2) he claims that the bread and wine are not converted into
a small portion (portiuncula) of Christ’s flesh and blood but into the whole of
Christ’s body and blood; and (3) he claims that the change is not sensory in
nature but intellectual. In the same letter, Berengar also develops the idea of a
sacrament (sacramentum) as a sacred sign (sacrum signum); it is because the
consecrated bread is a sacrament or sign of Christ’s body that it can be said it
is Christ’s body ‘to the faith and the intellect’.15 For Berengar, Christ’s presence
in the Eucharist is not material but intellectual or spiritual. If anachronistic
doctrinal terminology is allowed, it is correct to say that Berengar denied the
‘real presence’ of Christ in the Eucharist, but it should be remembered that the
doctrine of ‘real presence’ in the form he knew it was of a crude character.16
Berengar was certainly not alone in his dissatisfaction with the carnal-
ist view. However, it is difficult to tell how many wholehearted supporters he
could find. The interpretation of the Eucharist was an urgent problem for many
eleventh-century thinkers, and attempts were made to find less crude ways of
conceptualizing a ‘real presence’. Gradually, the development led towards the
doctrine of transubstantiation. Even though there were formulations already
in the eleventh century that can—with hindsight—be connected to transub-
stantiation, this doctrine in any developed form did not emerge until later.17
The immediate background of Lanfranc’s De corpore is the synod of Rome
in April 1059 and its aftermath. Berengar went to the synod with high hopes,
as he expected to get a chance to explain his views. Those who arranged the
synod had other plans: an oath had been prepared in which Berengar admits
that he has held heretic views on the Eucharist but now returns to the doctrine
14 Berengar of Tours, Purgatoria epistola contra Almannum, ed. Montclos in Lanfranc et

Bérenger, 531–38, at 534, lines 71–80. See also Montclos, 125–48.
15 Berengar, Purgatoria epistola contra Almannum, ed. Montclos, 532, lines 14–15; 533, lines
44–45. The Augustinian definition of a sacrament as a ‘sacred sign’ (sacrum signum) is
quoted twice (532, line 23, and 536, line 125). See also note 48 in 6.4 below.
16 See Montclos, Lanfranc et Bérenger, 418.
17 Even the carnalist view includes a ‘transubstantiation’ of a kind: the bread and wine con-
vert into Christ’s flesh and blood, but these new entities are veiled under the semblances
of bread and wine.
116 Chapter 6
of the Church. Berengar had no choice but to succumb—because of the fear

of death, he later explained.18 The oath which he was forced to read included
the following:
I Berengar … anathematize every heresy and in particular that which

has disgraced me thus far which seeks to assert that the bread and wine
which are placed on the altar are merely a sacrament after the consecra-
tion and not the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ … I declare
that I hold concerning the sacraments of the Lord’s table that faith which
the lord and venerable Pope Nicholas and this holy synod by evangelical
and apostolic authority have delivered to be held and have affirmed to
me, namely, that the bread and wine which are placed on the altar are not
only a sacrament after the consecration but also the true body and blood
of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that they are, not only in sacrament but in
truth, in a sensory fashion handled by the hands of the priests, broken,
and crushed by the teeth of the faithful …19
It is not clear how this text was meant to be interpreted. It does not explicitly
say that the bread is no longer there after the consecration. On the contrary,
one gains the impression that the synod makes statements about the conse-
crated bread: it is affirmed to be not only a sacrament but also the body of
Christ. The text uses the word ‘body’ (corpus) and not the word ‘flesh’ (caro)
of the Christ present on the Eucharistic table, which suggests that the whole of
Christ’s body is present and not just a piece of his flesh. On the other hand, the
text is very emphatic about the sensory nature of the presence: Christ’s body
is handled and broken by the hands of the priests and ‘crushed by the teeth of
the faithful’. Rightly or wrongly, Berengar understood that the synod wanted to
uphold the carnalist view that he criticized.
At the actual synod, Berengar was too frightened to defend his case. After
the synod, he soon regained his spirit. He wrote the short text known as
Scriptum contra synodum, in which he attacked the oath that he had been
forced to read, arguing that it was (1) internally inconsistent and (2) against
the true doctrine of the Church. When it comes to the first point, Berengar
18 See Montclos, Lanfranc et Bérenger, 162–71; Gibson, Lanfranc, 69–70; Cowdrey, Lanfranc,
63–64. See also Berengar of Tours, Rescriptum contra Lanfrannum I, ed. R. B. C. Huygens,
Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis 84 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1988), 66–68,
lines 1112–65.
19 The text is reproduced by Lanfranc in De corpore 2, 410C–411B, ed. Huygens, 241, lines
84–105, here 84–100. For a translation of the whole oath, see Cowdrey, Lanfranc, 63–64.
My translation here includes some modifications.
claimed that the synod’s intention had been to deny the continued existence
of the bread and wine after the consecration but it failed in this because it
authorized statements that entail their continued existence. When it comes
to the second point, Berengar presented a renewed statement of his idea of
the Eucharist as a sacrament, quoting passages from authoritative writings,
mainly from Augustine’s works. Berengar’s Scriptum has not survived as an
independent text, but Lanfranc’s De corpore includes twenty-two quotations
from it.20 When one reads the quotations there one after another, at least the
first thirteen quotations appear to form a continuous and coherent text.21 As
for the rest, it is difficult to say whether Lanfranc has left something out, but it
is possible that the whole text of the Scriptum is reproduced in De corpore. The
following two sections will be dedicated to analysing how Lanfranc replies to
Berengar’s two main claims in the Scriptum: that the synod’s teaching is incon-
sistent (6.3) and that it is contrary to the true doctrine of the Church (in 6.4).
De corpore is a carefully crafted rhetorical text which tries to give the im-
pression of being a spontaneous outburst—the outburst of a pious erudite
who is angry. The shortage of explicit thematic structure in the treatise fits
well with this impression. The main part of it, De corpore 2–17, is presented as
a criticism of the Scriptum.22 Before that, there is an introductory discussion
(De corpore 1).23 At the end of the treatise, there is some further discussion that
can be divided into three parts: Lanfranc’s official definition of the Eucharistic
doctrine and the grounds for it (De corpore 18–19), criticism of some additional
Berengarian arguments (De corpore 20–21), and a discussion that appears to be
meant as a general refutation of the Berengarian teaching (De corpore 22–23).24
When it comes to literary form, De corpore is a hybrid of a letter and a dia-
logue. The opening salutation identifies the treatise as a letter which Lanfranc
sends to Berengar: ‘Lanfranc, through God’s mercy Catholic, to Berengar, an
20 The first quotation is in De corpore 2, 409D, the twenty-second in De corpore 17, 426D.
I identify the quotations by using the symbol # and a number, for example #1 and #22.
Montclos, Lanfranc et Bérenger, 181–82, speaks of twenty-three quotations because he also
counts a remark in De corpore 15, 426A.
21 In Rescriptum contra Lanfrannum, which is his reply to De corpore, Berengar offers a run-
ning commentary of the early parts of De corpore and subjects those parts to a critical
scrutiny. Even though Berengar often criticizes Lanfranc for distorting his views, he never
criticizes the latter for misquoting him or for leaving out something that should have
been quoted. See Rescriptum, ed. Huygens, book I and the beginning of book II, pages
35–101.
22 De corpore 2–17, 409D–430A. The historical passages in De corpore 2 and 4 can be found
in ed. Huygens, 241–46, lines 73–203.
23 De corpore 1, 407A–409D, ed. Huygens, 239–41, lines 1–72.
24 De corpore 18–19, 430A–435D; De corpore 20–21, 436A–440B; De corpore 22–23, 440B–442D.
118 Chapter 6
enemy of the Catholic Church’.25 The main part of it (the reply to the Scriptum
in De corpore 2–17) consists of an uneven ‘disputation’ between ‘Lanfranc’ and
‘Berengar’. One of the main points in the introductory discussion that Lanfranc
offers in De corpore 1 is to create a justification for the procedure in the follow-
ing chapters. Right at the beginning, after the salutation, Lanfranc describes
the wholesome effects that a disputation between him and Berengar would
have: either both Berengar and his followers would return to the true faith, or
if Berengar remained obstinate in his heresy, his followers would nevertheless
return to the faith of the Church. However, Lanfranc has lost hope of a live
debate with Berengar: he claims that Berengar is not willing to meet him or
any persons who could judge between his views and Lanfranc’s views.26 The
disputation in De corpore 2–17 appears as a substitute for a live disputation
between Lanfranc and Berengar, and what is at stake is the eternal salvation of
Berengar’s followers. Lanfranc explains the procedure that he will use: he will
insert the names ‘Berengar’ and ‘Lanfranc’ to indicate who is speaking.27
As mentioned, I find it quite possible that the twenty-two extracts preserved
in De corpore contain the whole text of the Scriptum. It does not follow from
this, however, that Berengar’s voice is properly heard in De corpore. On the con-
trary, Lanfranc presents Berengar’s text only to twist its meaning beyond recog-
nition. The ‘dialogical’ or ‘disputational’ structure which Lanfranc devised for
De corpore 2–17 was designed to serve this purpose. Lanfranc cuts Berengar’s
text into such small slices that it is virtually impossible for the reader to get
any adequate idea of it, particularly when Lanfranc’s own comments, placed
in between, point in wrong directions.
6.3 Reply to Berengar’s Logical Argument
In De corpore 2–8, Lanfranc replies to the part of the Scriptum in which

Berengar argues that the text which he had been forced to read in the synod in
Rome is internally inconsistent. Berengar claims that, in sanctioning that text,
the synod failed in its attempt to deny the continued existence of the bread
and wine after the consecration because it authorized statements that entail
their continued existence. He tries to make the point very clear; here is part
of how he elaborates on it (#8 is the eighth quotation from the Scriptum in
De corpore, and so on):
25 De corpore 1, 407A, ed. Huygens, 239, lines 1–2.

26 De corpore 1, 407A–408A, ed. Huygens, 239, lines 3–17, 21–23.
27 De corpore 1, 409B–C, ed. Huygens, 240.51–241.66.
(#8) For the one who says, ‘The bread and wine on the altar are merely
sacraments’, or, ‘The bread and wine on the altar are merely the true body
and blood of Christ’, establishes the survival of the bread and wine in
every way. (#9) For as the one who says, ‘Christ is the supreme corner-
stone’, does not take away Christ but in every way establishes Christ’s
existence, in the same way the one who says, ‘The bread on the altar is
merely a sacrament’, or, ‘The bread on the altar is merely the true body of
Christ’, does not deny that there is bread on the altar but confirms that
there is bread and wine on the Lord’s table, (#10) for the affirmation as a
whole cannot stand if a part is removed—and this, as blessed Augustine
says in the book On Christian Teaching, persists indissolubly in the very
truth of eternity, which is God. (#11) Now this [statement] which asserts,
‘The bread and wine which are placed on the altar are merely sacra-
ments’, is an affirmation, consisting of its well-known parts, the predicate
and the subject, …28
Berengar’s argument can be characterized as logical or dialectical because it

is based on what early medieval dialectic taught about sentences; I will refer
to it as ‘Berengar’s logical argument’. The analysis of a sentence into a subject
and a predicate is part and parcel of the dialectical approach, and the distinc-
tion between an affirmation and negation is also a basic dialectical doctrine.29
The idea that an affirmation cannot be true if the subject does not exist can be
found in Aristotle’s Categories.30
There is nothing intrinsically difficult in Berengar’s logical argument, and
we can assume that Lanfranc could comprehend it. To refute the argument,
Lanfranc should either (1) show that the synod did not want to deny the con-
tinued existence of the bread and wine after the consecration or (2) show that
the continued existence of the bread and wine is not assumed in the formula-
tions authorized by the synod. Understandably, Lanfranc did not attempt to do
either. If he had chosen the first alternative, he would have conceded one of
Berengar’s main points against the carnalist view (see 6.2). The second alterna-
tive did not appeal to Lanfranc either, because the synod’s text (quoted and
discussed in 6.2) certainly appears to contain statements about the bread and
wine after the consecration.
28 De corpore 5, 414D (#8); 6, 415D–416A (#9); 7, 416D (#10); 8, 418C (#11).
29 It should be noted that the subject and predicate of a sentence can be linguistically com-
plicated, like ‘the bread and wine on the altar’ or ‘the true body and blood of Christ’.
30 Aristotle, Categories 10, 13b27–33.
120 Chapter 6
Berengar’s logical argument posed a serious problem to Lanfranc, and De

corpore as a whole shows that he appreciated the problem. Lanfranc’s strategy
in facing the problem includes at least the following elements. (1) He rejects
any criticism of the text authorized by the synod but does not offer any explicit
analysis of it as a text. (2) He carefully avoids using the kinds of formulation
that had given rise to Berengar’s argument. (3) He devises a novel Eucharistic
theory which makes it possible to interpret the synod’s text in a manner
which is not vulnerable to Berengar’s argument, but he leaves it to those who
can to impose this new interpretation on the text. (4) He works to hide the
power of Berengar’s argument by misleading the audience about the content
of what Berengar says. (5) He creates the impression that he offers a defini-
tive refutation of that part of the Scriptum. All these elements are present in
De corpore 2–8, but the novel Eucharistic theory is fully developed only later
in the treatise.
Lanfranc does not actually address Berengar’s logical argument at all in
De corpore 2–8, even though there are some passages in which he seems to
be addressing it. In his formulation of the argument, Berengar made use of
the statements ‘The bread on the altar is merely a sacrament’ and ‘The bread
on the altar is merely the true body of Christ’. Lanfranc claims repeatedly and
emphatically that the synod did not authorize either of these statements, be-
cause the synod did not use the word ‘merely’ (solummodo) in its formulation
of what the true faith is.31 Strictly speaking, this appears to be correct, but it
is also beside the point because the word ‘merely’ is in no way essential to
Berengar’s argument. For the execution of the argument, it suffices that the
synod authorizes any affirmative statement about the consecrated bread and
wine. Even though Lanfranc speaks as if he had destroyed the starting point of
Berengar’s argument, he has at best pointed out an easily remediable weakness
in Berengar’s execution of it.32
De corpore 7 is the most famous chapter in the treatise, at least as far as
the history of philosophy is concerned, and it also appears to be addressing
Berengar’s argument(s). This chapter contains Lanfranc’s statement of policy
about the use of dialectic in theology as well as two pieces of argumentation
in which he makes use of logical tools. Southern additionally believed that this
chapter is the key to Lanfranc’s theory of the Eucharist, but this is a mistake.33
31 De corpore 5, 414D–415D; 6, 416B–C; 7, 417B–D; 8, 419B–C: ‘… Caetera namque dixit, adver-
bium solummodo nequaquam posuit.’
32 See also Montclos, Lanfranc et Bérenger, 275–76.
33 Southern, ‘Lanfranc of Bec’, 39–41; Southern, Anselm and His Biographer, 21–22; Southern,
Anselm: A Portrait, 47–50. Southern’s construal of Lanfranc’s Eucharistic theory begins
with two appearances of the word essentia in De corpore 7, in 417D: ‘in principalibus
De corpore 7 is Lanfranc’s reply to quotation #10 from the Scriptum:
BERENGAR. For the affirmation as a whole cannot stand if a part is

removed—and this, as blessed Augustine says in the book On Christian
Teaching, persists indissolubly in the very truth of eternity, which is
God.34
‘Having abandoned the sacred authorities, you take refuge in dialectic’, begins
Lanfranc’s answer.35 There is no particular reason why Lanfranc should make
this claim at this point in his reply to the Scriptum. He has already spent several
chapters discussing Berengar’s logical argument. It should also be emphasized
that Lanfranc’s claim is quite unfounded. Berengar’s ambition was to strive to-
wards a better understanding of the Christian faith by intelligent interpreta-
tion of the authoritative writings, and these writings have a very central role
in the Scriptum as well. Berengar’s method is basically the same as that of the
academically-minded among his contemporaries, also including Lanfranc in
his better moments. However, Lanfranc finds it useful to create the impression
that there is a fundamental difference in their methodologies. Commenting on
the method also creates a suitable context for the passages in which he appar-
ently offers a refutation of Berengar’s argument(s) with the aid of logical tools.
In the first part of De corpore 7, Lanfranc presents a statement of policy re-
garding the use of dialectic in the treatment of theological matters:
LANFRANC. Having abandoned the sacred authorities, you take refuge

in dialectic. But when listening or answering about a mystery of faith,
what should belong to the matter, I indeed prefer to listen to sacred au-
thorities than dialectical reasons, and answer in a like manner. But yet
essentiis permanere’, and in 418D: ‘qui … res ipsas in principalibus ac secundis essentiis
condidit’. Neither the term ‘substance’ nor the term ‘accident’ appears in these passages,
and the latter passage does not concern the Eucharist in any way. Southern needs to make
a number of questionable assumptions to be able to arrive at the claim that Lanfranc
‘distinctly described the change in the Eucharistic elements in terms of the Aristotelian
categories of substance and accidents’. See Holopainen, Dialectic and Theology, 69–72,
for a detailed analysis. Nevertheless, it can perhaps be said that Southern’s interpretation
of De corpore 7 is highly consonant with Lanfranc’s intentions in the chapter. Namely, it
may be that Lanfranc deliberately planted the expressions that Southern’s construal starts
from to create the impression that there may be some sophisticated philosophical idea
related to his Eucharistic theory.
34 De corpore 7, 416D.
35 De corpore 7, 416D: ‘LANFR. Relictis sacris auctoritatibus, ad dialecticam confugium
facis.’
122 Chapter 6
we should endeavour to respond to these things too, lest you think that
I cannot meet you in this part because of the lack of the art. It may look
like bragging to some people, and it may be imputed to ostentation
rather than necessity. But God is my witness, and my conscience, that
in the treatment of the sacred writings I do not wish to propose dialecti-
cal questions or provide solutions to questions proposed. Even when the
subject matter discussed is such that it can be more clearly explained
with the aid of the rules of this art, I hide the art as far as I can by equi-
pollency of propositions,36 so that it does not appear that I rely more
upon the art than upon the truth and the authority of the holy fathers—
although blessed Augustine in some of his writings and especially in the
book On Christian Teaching praises this discipline most abundantly and
confirms its great strength in all matters that are investigated concerning
holy writings.37
The passage includes three different strands. First, Lanfranc makes it clear
that the use of logic can, in principle, be very helpful in theological discus-
sion. Second, Lanfranc emphasizes that his own policy is to keep to arguments
based on sacred authorities as much as possible and to attempt to disguise the
use of the art when using it cannot be avoided. Third, he makes it clear that
his explicit treatment of Berengar’s arguments is a special case. Related to this,
Lanfranc next offers a precedent to what he is doing by making reference to
(pseudo-)Augustine’s use of logic against Felicianus, an Arian heretic. Lanfranc
states that the heretic could not stand ‘the implicit and entangling connec-
tions of the Topics (locorum) and syllogisms (syllogismorum)’ and eventually
cried aloud: ‘You fight me with Aristotelian subtlety, and like a storm wave you
tear down everything that I say.’38
In the two passages that follow, Lanfranc attacks Berengar with the aid
of tools deriving from the two branches of early medieval dialectic dealing
with argumentation, namely, topics and syllogistics (see 4.1). The first pas-
sage, already quoted earlier (in 4.3), makes use of a large number of terms and
36 Southern, ‘Lanfranc of Bec’, 41–43, and Anselm and His Biographer, 22–23, claims that the
mention of ‘equipollency of propositions’ should be read as a reference to a specific ar-
gument technique. Southern’s idea is still often repeated, but he himself no longer sub-
scribed to it in Anselm: A Portrait, 51–52. See Holopainen, Dialectic and Theology, 50–52,
for a critical discussion.
37 De corpore 7, 416D–417B (amended). The passage from Augustine’s De doctrina christiana,
II, 31, 48, was quoted in 4.1.
38 De corpore 7, 417 B. The reference is to Vigilius Thapsensis (pseudo-Augustine), Contra
Felicianum Arianum de unitate Trinitatis 4 and 10, Patrologia Latina 42, 1159, 1164.
principles that pertain to the theory of argument within topics.39 The second
passage, related to syllogistics, reads as follows:
You strive to prove with yet another argument that the bread and wine
persist in the principal essences40 after the consecration, saying: Non
enim constare poterit affirmatio omnis parte subruta [either: ‘The affirma-
tion as a whole cannot stand if a part is removed’, or, ‘Not every affirma-
tion can stand if a part is removed’]. To prove the claim you ought not
to have produced the particular negation, which proves nothing in the
question at hand, but rather the universal negation, which says: ‘No affir-
mation can stand if a part is removed’. Well, your negation is a particular
one, ‘Not every affirmation can stand if a part is removed’ (non omnis
affirmatio constare poterit parte subruta). On the other hand, your minor
premise is: ‘“The bread and wine on the altar are merely a sacrament”, or,
“The bread and wine on the altar are merely the true body and blood of
Christ”, both are affirmations.’ With these two particular statements as
premises, can you conclude according to rules that the affirmation can-
not stand? Far from it! For in none of the syllogistic figures is some con-
clusion logically inferred from two particular premises. Therefore, you
have set up the argument badly.41
The impression that the readers are likely to get from these passages is that
Lanfranc succeeds in pointing out some elementary mistakes in Berengar’s
argumentation. Those with some imagination can almost hear Berengar’s dis-
tant voice crying as Felicianus had done.
However, the impression of Lanfranc’s victory over Berengar on the battle-
field of dialectic is only an impression. To begin with, the syllogism which
Lanfranc criticizes in the syllogistic passage is of his own invention.42 Lanfranc
accuses Berengar of having presented a categorical syllogism in which both the
premises are ‘particular’ statements (as opposed to ‘universal’ statements).43
He is right in maintaining that no such syllogism can be valid because none of
the syllogisms in the four Aristotelian figures has two particular statements as
39 De corpore 7, 417B–C.

40 This is one of the occurrences of the word essentia that Southern used as the starting
point for his interpretation of Lanfranc’s Eucharistic theory.
41 De corpore 7, 417D–418A (amended).
42 See Gibson, Lanfranc, 87; Holopainen, Dialectic and Theology, 60–64.
43 For example, ‘Every (omnis) animal is a substance’ is a universal affirmation, and ‘Some
(quidam) animal is a substance’ is a particular affirmation. ‘Not every’ (non omnis) was
also understood as expressing particularity.
124 Chapter 6
premises. However, Berengar did not present any categorical syllogism in the
Scriptum. To be able to present his criticism, Lanfranc deliberately misreads
Berengar’s sentence non enim constare poterit affirmatio omnis parte subruta.
The word omnis can mean both ‘every’ and ‘(the) whole’. When Berengar wrote,
non … poterit affirmatio omnis, he meant: ‘the affirmation as a whole cannot’.
Lanfranc reads it ‘not every affirmation can’, which may be a possible read-
ing as such but is definitely nonsense in the context of the Scriptum. Reading
Berengar’s sentence as ‘Not every affirmation can stand if a part is removed’,
Lanfranc is able to put together an allegedly Berengarian syllogism in which
this ‘particular negation’ is one of the two premises.
The passage related to topics does not fare any better. Lanfranc repeats in
it his criticism against the two statements which Berengar used to explain his
logical argument against the synod of Rome. The criticism is beside the point,
and making use of the terms of topics does not make it any stronger. Lanfranc
does not use the tools of logic to reply to Berengar’s logical argument but to
mislead the audience about the content of what Berengar says and to create
the impression that he has offered a definitive refutation. De corpore 7 also
serves to enforce the feeling, gradually developed in the course of De corpore,
that Lanfranc is a true erudite whereas Berengar is an impostor.
To complete his treatment of #10, Lanfranc puts the reader on the wrong
track about Berengar’s allusion to Augustine’s On Christian Teaching. Berengar
meant a passage saying that ‘the validity of logical sequences has not been es-
tablished by men, but is observed and noted by them’.44 His point was simply
to underline that his logical argument against the synod of Rome is a valid
inference. Lanfranc lets the audience understand that Berengar wants to say
that all truths have a divine anchor insofar as God foreknows all things and
creates the things which make statements true. By misidentifying Berengar’s
allusion, Lanfranc gets an opportunity to criticize Berengar’s use of authorita-
tive writings.45
In De corpore 8, Lanfranc deals with quotations #11–13. He accuses Berengar
of being unnecessarily repetitious and uses this as an excuse for moving swiftly
onward. He lets us understand that he has already offered a definitive refuta-
tion of Berengar’s arguments against the synod’s formulations, and he repeats
some of his earlier remarks. Lanfranc also surmises that the sole reason for
Berengar’s using dialectical terms like ‘affirmation’, ‘predicate’, and ‘subject’ is
that he hopes, in this way, to cause the unlearned in the audience to perceive
44 Augustine, De doctrina christiana II, 32, 50. See Berengar, Rescriptum I, ed. Huygens, 93,
lines 2054–60.
45 De corpore 7, 418A–C.
him as an expert dialectician.46 Given that Berengar barely mentions some

well-known basic terms, the allegation is quite unfounded.
6.4 Reply to Berengar’s Account of the Eucharist
To show that the text authorized by the synod of Rome is ‘against the Catholic
truth’ (#1),47 Berengar presents in the Scriptum an account of the Eucharist
(#14–20) which largely consists of citations from Augustine’s works. The key-
note idea is that of a sacrament as a sacred sign:
(#17) Of which blessed Augustine says in the book On the City of God: ‘A
sacrament is a sacred sign.’ He defines a sign in the book On Christian
Teaching: ‘A sign is a thing which, over and above the appearance which
it presents to the senses, causes something else to come into the mind as
a consequence of itself.’48
Berengar builds his interpretation of the Eucharistic doctrine around this idea.
He maintains that the bread and wine on the altar are not destroyed at the con-
secration but receive a new status in that they become a sacrament. Berengar
distinguishes between the sacrament (sacramentum) and the thing of the
sacrament (res sacramenti). The bread and wine are the sacrament, whereas
Christ’s body is the thing of the sacrament. The sign, the bread and wine, is
visible, whereas the thing signified, Christ’s body, is invisible for us because of
its current location in heaven. There is a similarity between the sacrament and
the thing of the sacrament, and in a manner, the sacrament is the thing of the
sacrament: we can say that the bread and wine are Christ’s body and blood.49
In a concluding remark (#22), Berengar rejects as impossible the suggestion
that the Eucharistic ‘breaking of the bread’ could be performed by physically
breaking up Christ’s body because Christ’s body is absolutely incorruptible and
remains in heaven until the restitution of all things.50
Lanfranc deals with Berengar’s account of the Eucharist in De corpore 9–17.
Like in De corpore 2–8, one of Lanfranc’s central aims is to mislead the audience
46 De corpore 8, 418C–419C.

47 De corpore 2, 409D (#1).
48 De corpore 12, 422B–C (# 17). Cf. Augustine, De civitate Dei X, 5 and De doctrina christiana
II, 1, 1.
49 De corpore 9, 419C (#14); 10, 421A–B (amended) (#15); 11, 421D (#16); 12, 422B–C (#17); 13,
422B–423A (#18); 14, 423D (#19); 15, 425A–B (#20).
50 De corpore 17, 426D (#22).
126 Chapter 6
about the content of what Berengar says. He also strives to reinforce the pic-
ture, first introduced in De corpore 1, that Berengar’s use of the authoritative
writings is faulty in a fundamental way. Related to this, he is careful to incorpo-
rate all of Berengar’s authoritative references among the evidence in support
of his own position.
The idea of a sacrament as a sacred sign is central in Berengar’s analysis of
the Eucharist. Lanfranc takes this understanding of ‘sacrament’ from Berengar,
but in Lanfranc’s hands, the idea of the Eucharist as a sacrament is thoroughly
transformed. For one thing, Lanfranc makes a distinction between the ap-
pearance (species) and the essence (essentia) in the Eucharistic elements.
What is more, when Berengar makes a distinction between ‘Christ’s body’ and
‘Christ’s flesh’ in order to deny the appropriateness of the latter notion in the
Eucharistic context (unless it is taken to mean Christ’s body), Lanfranc makes a
distinction between ‘Christ’s body’ and ‘Christ’s flesh’ in order to designate two
different entities involved in the Eucharist: ‘Christ’s body’ is Christ’s historical
body which once suffered on the Cross and is now situated in heaven, and
‘Christ’s flesh’ is a piece of flesh which is hiding under the appearance of the
bread on the altar. For Lanfranc, the piece of flesh on the altar is a sacrament
or sacred sign signifying Christ’s historical body.51 Lanfranc offers his fullest
exposition of this idea in De corpore 14. The chapters that precede, that is, De
corpore 9–13, prepare the reader for it by introducing various elements in it as
well as creating a motivation for it.
In De corpore 9, Lanfranc replies to quotation #14 from the Scriptum:
BERENGAR. Through the consecration on the altar, the bread and wine
become a sacrament of religion, not so that they cease to be what they
were, but ‘so that they are what they were and change into something
else’, as blessed Ambrose says in the book On the Sacraments.52
Lanfranc’s reply includes two elements. First, he accuses Berengar of falsely

attributing his own views to the authoritative writers.53 Then he does himself
what he has accused Berengar of doing by imputing his own view to Ambrose.54
Before De corpore 9, Lanfranc has already accused Berengar of faulty use of
the authoritative writings in several passages.55 In De corpore 9, however, he
51 For Lanfranc’s view of the sacrament in the Eucharist, see also Montclos, Lanfranc et
Bérenger, 392–416.
52 De corpore 9, 419C. Ambrose, De sacramentis IV, 4, 15.
53 De corpore 9, 419C–420C.
54 De corpore 9, 420C–421A.
55 De corpore 1, 408A–409A, ed. Huygens, 239–40, lines 23–35; 5, 414D–415D; 7, 418B–C.
presents his most vigorous attack against Berengar related to this issue. The
reason for this, obviously, is that Lanfranc is now moving to the part of the
Scriptum which mainly consists of citations from the authoritative writings.
Lanfranc finds it important to convince the audience that Berengar can only
apparently claim the support of the authoritative writers for the elaboration of
the doctrine that he presents. Placing this attack in De corpore 9 also has the
advantage that it helps to hide the fact that Lanfranc’s own interpretation of
Ambrose’s statement is baseless.
In #14, Berengar offers an exact citation from Ambrose’s De sacramentis.
How is it possible that Lanfranc can use this citation to accuse him of falsely
attributing his views to the authoritative writings? Medieval writers did not
have quotation marks at their disposal, and Berengar obviously had not used
any other technical device to show where the citation from Ambrose begins.
This made it possible for Lanfranc to claim that Berengar had intended a lon-
ger citation than actually is the case: he pretends to understand that the cita-
tion includes not only the phrase ‘so that they are what they were and change
into something else’ but at least as much as follows: ‘not so that they cease
to be what they were, but so that they are what they were and change into
something else’. On these grounds, Lanfranc offers a long rhetorical passage
which starts with a triple exclamation—‘O senseless mind! O man who lies
without shame! O punishable heedlessness!’56—and ends with the accusation
that even among the heretical thinkers in the history of Christianity, it would
be hard to find anyone worse than Berengar when it comes to appealing to
authoritative writings.57
After these preparations, Lanfranc takes up the passage in De sacramentis
that Berengar had cited and imposes an interpretation on it. This is the passage
in De corpore where Lanfranc first introduces the distinction between ‘appear-
ance’ (species) and ‘essence’ (essentia), a distinction central to his elaboration
of the Eucharistic doctrine. He introduces it by imputing to Ambrose the idea
that the bread and wine ‘[are] what they were when it comes to the visible
appearance and change into the nature of things that they previously were
not when it comes to the interior essence’.58 There is nothing in Ambrose’s
text to suggest this interpretation.59 Lanfranc simply postulates that the pas-
sage should be interpreted the way he does, but the other things he says in the
56 De corpore 9, 419C.

57 De corpore 9, 420B–C (amended).
58 De corpore 9, 420C–D. Ambrose, De sacramentis IV, 4, 15.
59 Montclos, Lanfranc et Bérenger, 298, characterizes Lanfranc’s conclusion as ‘unexpected’
(inattendue) and ‘quite questionable’ (assez contestable).
128 Chapter 6
same chapter make sure that very few would dare to entertain doubts about
what he says.
In De corpore 10–13, Lanfranc goes through quotations #15–18 from the
Scriptum, which include a number of citations from Augustine’s works. He
bends these citations to support the idea that a piece of Christ’s flesh hid-
ing under the appearance of the bread is a sacrament in the sense of a sa-
cred sign. While doing this, Lanfranc often resorts to ambiguous and vague
expressions.60 He also creates a motivation for distinguishing Christ’s flesh and
Christ’s body by dwelling on the question of how it is possible that Christ’s
flesh is eaten and his blood drunk on earth (cf. John 6:53–56) and Christ never-
theless remains whole and living at the right hand of the Father.61
Even though Lanfranc presents his official definition of the Eucharistic
doctrine in De corpore 18 (see 6.5), the most important individual chapter in
De corpore for understanding his elaboration of this doctrine is not chapter 18
but chapter 14. In it, Lanfranc explicates some important ideas which are ei-
ther implicit or absent in Lanfranc’s official statement. The starting point is
quotation #19 from the Scriptum:
BERENGAR. Of which blessed Augustine says in the letter to Boniface:

‘As the sacrament of Christ’s body is in a certain manner Christ’s body,
and the sacrament of Christ’s blood is in a certain manner Christ’s blood,
in the same way, the sacrament of faith is faith.’62
Berengar understood this passage to say that the sacrament of Christ’s body,
that is to say, the bread, is ‘in a certain manner’ Christ’s body in that it can figu-
ratively be called Christ’s body. Lanfranc will agree with Berengar in holding
that the sacrament of Christ’s body is figuratively called Christ’s body. However,
the interpretation which he imposes on the Augustinian passage is entirely dif-
ferent from Berengar’s because he identifies the sacrament differently:
LANFRANC. The sacrament of Christ’s body, as for the matter that the
Lord Christ himself was immolated on the Cross, is his flesh, which we
receive in the sacrament covered under the form of bread, and his blood,
which we drink under the appearance and taste of wine. For the flesh is
the sacrament of the flesh, and the blood is the sacrament of the blood.
By the flesh and blood, both of which are invisible, intelligible, spiritual,
60 De corpore 10–13, 421A–423D.

61 De corpore 10, 421C–D and 11, 422A–B.
62 De corpore 14, 423D. Augustine, Ep. 98, 9.
is signified the visible and palpable body of the Redeemer, which is mani-
festly full of every grace and virtue and the divine majesty. When one of
these is broken and divided up for the salvation of the people and the
other shed from the chalice and received by the mouth of the faithful, his
death on the Cross and the springing of the blood from his side is figura-
tively expressed.63
According to Lanfranc, there is a piece of Christ’s flesh and a small amount

of Christ’s blood hiding under the appearances of the bread and wine, and
the flesh and blood are a sacrament or a sacred sign of Christ’s historical body
which once suffered on the Cross and is now situated in heaven. Regarding
the thing signified, that is, Christ’s historical body, the focus is on the events at
Calvary (so also in De corpore 13), and Lanfranc presents a remark to that effect.
However, there is also a formulation about ‘divine majesty’, which makes one
think of Christ’s body in its heavenly state.64
Because Lanfranc sometimes uses the expressions ‘Christ’s flesh and blood’
and ‘Christ’s body and blood’ interchangeably, someone might doubt whether
he really wanted to distinguish between different entities by these expressions.
The remarks in De corpore 14 make it clear that there are two different kinds
of entities involved, even though Lanfranc does not discard his vague and am-
biguous formulations in it as well. For example, there is the following passage:
Therefore, the flesh and blood, which we eat daily to obtain God’s mercy
for the sake of our sins, are called Christ’s body and blood, not only be-
cause they are essentially the same (essentialiter idem), while very dif-
ferent in their qualities, but also according to that mode of speaking in
which we call the thing that signifies with the name used for the signified
thing. And if this flesh and this blood are sacraments of themselves when
taken in this way and that way, there is no reason for anyone to be dis-
turbed by this, because the very Lord Jesus, after his resurrection, acted as
a type and figure of himself regarding different time points.65
63 De corpore 14, 423D–424A. When Lanfranc characterizes Christ’s flesh and blood as ‘intel-
ligible’ and ‘spiritual’, he can be interpreted as implying that they can only be grasped by
the intellect or the spirit. See Montclos, Lanfranc et Bérenger, 382–83.
64 Montclos, Lanfranc et Bérenger, 402–403, asserts that the remarks in this passage also
apply to Christ’s historical body as presently existing in heaven. However, Lanfranc is,
deliberately, vague about this. See also 6.5.
65 De corpore 14, 424B: ‘Caro ergo et sanguis, quibus ad impetrandam pro peccatis nostris
Dei misericordiam quotidie alimur, Christi corpus ac sanguis vocantur, non solum quia
essentialiter idem sunt, qualitatibus plurimum discrepantes, verum etiam eo locutionis
130 Chapter 6
The first sentence makes it clear that the flesh and blood on the altar are en-
tities different from Christ’s historical body and are only figuratively called
‘Christ’s body and blood’. Lanfranc here gives two grounds for using this figura-
tive mode of speaking: the flesh and blood have the same essence as Christ’s
historical body, and the flesh and blood are a sign which signifies the historical
body. In the second sentence, there is a vague formulation which appears to
identify the two entities. However, Lanfranc does not assert the identity of the
two things but speaks about it conditionally: if the sign and the thing signified
are two different aspects of the same thing, this should not disturb anyone.66
(See also 6.5.) The closing remark in the chapter again makes a sharp distinc-
tion between the flesh on the altar and Christ’s historical body:
Therefore, as the heavenly bread, which is Christ’s true flesh, is in its own
way called Christ’s body, when it really is the sacrament of Christ’s body,
namely the body which hung on the Cross visible, palpable, and mortal,
and the very immolation of the flesh itself in the hands of the priest is
called Christ’s suffering, death, and crucifixion, not in the real truth but
in the signifying mystery, in the same way, the sacrament of faith, which
is baptism, is faith.67
Even though the flesh of Christ on the altar has the same essence as the flesh
in Christ’s historical body, the flesh on the altar and the historical body are two
distinct entities, and the former is a sacred sign signifying the latter.
modo quo res significans significatae rei solet vocabulo nuncupari. Nec juste quisquam
movebitur, si eadem caro, idemque sanguis sui ipsorum sacramenta existant secundum
aliud atque aliud accepta, cum ipse Dominus Jesus, post resurrectionem suam, sui ipsius
diversa temporum ratione typum gesserit et figuram.’
66 Montclos, Lanfranc et Bérenger, 396, 408–409, does not take into account the conditional
nature of Lanfranc’s statement. Lanfranc’s theory of the Eucharist requires that the flesh
on the altar and Christ’s body in heaven are two distinct entities, as Montclos also ac-
knowledges (e.g., 383–90).
67 De corpore 14, 425A (amended): ‘Sicut ergo coelestis panis, quae vera Christi caro est, suo
modo vocatur corpus Christi cum revera sit sacramentum corporis Christi [PL omits: cum
revera sit sacramentum corporis Christi], illius videlicet quod visibile, palpabile, mortale,
in cruce est suspensum; vocaturque ipsa carnis ipsius immolatio, quae sacredotis mani-
bus fit, Christi passio, mors, crucifixio, non rei veritate, sed significanti [PL: significante]
mysterio, sic sacramentum fidei, quod baptisma intelligit, fides est.’ As explained in note
3 in 5.1, the collations published in Montclos, Lanfranc et Bérenger, 540–45 are to be used
for amending the text in Patrologia Latina.
6.5 The Rhetorical Motivation for Lanfranc’s Theory
As Jean de Montclos has pointed out, the idea that the bread converts into
a piece of Christ’s flesh and the wine into a small amount of Christ’s blood
was popular among some theologians in the closing period of the early Middle
Ages (‘carnalism’ or ‘ultrarealism’).68 Even though this idea appears peculiar
or even offensive to many modern readers, the audience De corpore was pri-
marily addressing would largely perceive it as part of the traditional Christian
teaching. The innovativeness of the Eucharistic theory in De corpore does not
lie here. It lies in the way in which the carnalist position is combined with
the idea of a sacrament as a sacred sign: the flesh and blood of Christ which
are hidden under the appearances of the bread and wine are said to be a sac-
rament signifying Christ’s historical body. Regarding this central feature, the
theory of the Eucharist in De corpore is distinctive and idiosyncratic.
However, there are reasons for being cautious in imputing this theory to
Lanfranc (cf. 6.1). The strongly rhetorical character of De corpore means that
the usual methods for interpreting theological texts cannot be straightfor-
wardly applied to it. There are reasons for believing that Lanfranc did not
compose De corpore to express his thoughts; rather, he composed it—or had it
composed—to create some impressions that suited his purposes (and to pro-
duce some other opportune effects). In what follows, I make a case for ques-
tioning the sincerity of what Lanfranc says about Christ’s flesh as a sacrament.
If the case succeeds, to some notable degree at least, this constitutes a reason
to be suspicious about the seriousness of De corpore as a theological contribu-
tion in general.
The discussion of De corpore 9–17 in 6.4 already reveals one major reason
for questioning the sincerity of what Lanfranc says about Christ’s flesh as a
sacrament. Lanfranc presents these chapters as a reply to quotations #14–22
from the Scriptum. Among other things, Berengar had presented a string of
citations from various works of Augustine (in #16–20) as proof texts for his
own view. Lanfranc creates the impression that the texts quoted by Berengar
support the idea that a piece of Christ’s flesh masked under the appearance of
the bread is a sacred sign which refers to Christ’s historical body suffering on
the Cross. Even though Lanfranc does not explicitly say that he is offering an
interpretation of Augustine’s statements, any normal reader will take him as
doing just that. The duplicitous manner in which Lanfranc creates an apparent
68 See Montclos, Lanfranc et Bérenger, 590, ‘Formulation ultra-réaliste de la croyance eucha-

ristique’, with references to earlier parts of the work. See also note 10 in 6.2.
132 Chapter 6
Augustinian justification for his idea of Christ’s flesh as a sacred sign makes the
sincerity of this idea questionable.
I next take up two more major considerations that speak against the sincer-
ity of Lanfranc’s theory of the Eucharist in De corpore. If Lanfranc’s intention
had been to offer his genuine and considered view on the topic, then surely
he would have attempted to convey this to the audience. Rather surprisingly,
it appears that Lanfranc did not want the audience to get a clear understand-
ing of what his explication of the Eucharistic doctrine actually was. Further,
when querying the sincerity of ideas that are presented in a polemic context,
one scenario to be taken into account is that the view presented is adopted
merely because of its usefulness in the particular contest. It can be shown that
the theory of the Eucharist in De corpore serves extremely well in the rhetori-
cal mission against Berengar of Tours, and this is due to some features of the
theory that Lanfranc does not mention in his other writings.69
Lanfranc develops his elaboration of the sacrament in the Eucharist in the
course of his reply to Berengar’s Scriptum, in particular in De corpore 9–14.
Because the main focus of this part of the treatise is elsewhere and because
Lanfranc often resorts to ambiguous and vague expressions, it is unlikely that
the general reader will get a clear understanding of Lanfranc’s theory at this
stage. Lanfranc presents his official statement of the Eucharistic doctrine in
De corpore 18, and this is the part of the treatise that the reader is expected
to consult for an orthodox explanation of the issue.70 However, it turns out
that De corpore 18 does not give a clear exposition of his theory either. Here is
Lanfranc’s official statement:
We believe, therefore, that the earthly substances, which are divinely

sanctified on the Lord’s table by the priestly ministry, are unspeakably, in-
comprehensibly, and miraculously converted by the workings of a heav-
enly power into the essence of the Lord’s body, with the appearances of
69 For discussions concerning the Eucharist in Lanfranc’s other writings, some of them ear-
lier and some later than De corpore, see Montclos, Lanfranc et Bérenger, 326–40. Among
features that appear and, by implication, were endorsed by the historical Lanfranc are:
that the bread and wine convert into a piece of Christ’s flesh and a small amount of his
blood, and that the Eucharistic celebration is a sacrament which refers to what once hap-
pened to Christ’s historical body. Among features that do not appear are the distinction
between the sacrament and the thing of the sacrament, and the idea that the piece of
Christ’s flesh on the altar is a sacred sign signifying Christ’s historical body. The theory of
the Eucharist elaborated in De corpore is, in its main lines, compatible with what Lanfranc
says in his other writings, but some of the most salient features of the theory appear only
in De corpore.
70 See De corpore 18, 430A–B.
the things remaining, as well as some other qualities, in order that [the
receivers] would not be horrified by receiving them raw and bloody, and
in order that the believers would receive more abundant rewards for the
faith—the Lord’s body itself existing in heaven at the right hand of the
Father, immortal, inviolate, whole, undefiled, and unharmed. Thus, it can
be truly said that what is received both is the very body taken from the
Virgin and is not it. It is it, as far as the essence and the character and
power of its true nature are concerned. It is not it, if you look at the ap-
pearance of the bread and wine, and so forth as apprehended above.71
The position expressed in this passage consists of elements which are familiar
from the earlier parts of De corpore, and the remark at the end suggests that the
passage could be read as a summary of what has already been treated earlier.
However, the statement is clearly deficient because the idea of ‘sacrament’ as
a ‘sacred sign’ is conspicuously absent. In fact, there is only one reference to
‘sacrament’ as a ‘sacred sign’ in the later part of De corpore:
Again ‘sign’, ‘mystery’, ‘sacrament’, and whatever like terms, are names
used for designating the Lord’s suffering, assuming that ‘sacrament’ is
taken to mean a ‘sacred sign’, as blessed Augustine defines it in On the
City of God.72
However, the sign Lanfranc speaks of here is a sign of Christ’s suffering and
not of Christ’s body (both ideas appear in De corpore 14), and he fails to specify
what it is that is a sign in this sense. In addition, it is noteworthy that ‘sacra-
ment’ appears here in a list of terms, as if Lanfranc were saying that the term is
not particularly important.
Let us note some points related to Lanfranc’s official statement. First, when
the idea of a sacrament as a sacred sign is not mentioned, what remains is basi-
cally the carnalist theory that the bread converts into a piece of Christ’s flesh.
71 De corpore 18, 430B–C (amended): ‘Credimus igitur terrenas substantias, quae in mensa
Dominica, per sacerdotale ministerium [PL: mysterium], divinitus sanctificantur, inef-
fabiliter, incomprehensibiliter, mirabiliter, operante superna potentia, converti in es-
sentiam Dominici corporis, reservatis ipsarum rerum speciebus, et quibusdam aliis
qualitatibus, ne percipientes cruda et cruenta, horrerent, et ut credentes fidei praemia
ampliora perciperent, ipso tamen Dominico corpore existente in coelestibus ad dexteram
Patris, immortali, inviolato, integro, incontaminato, illaeso: ut vere dici possit, et ipsum
corpus quod de Virgine sumptum sumere, et tamen non ipsum. Ipsum quidem, quan-
tum ad essentiam veraeque naturae proprietatem atque virtutem; non ipsum autem, si
spectes [PL: species] panis vinique speciem, caeteraque superius comprehensa; …’
72 De corpore 20, 437C.
134 Chapter 6
In De corpore 18, Lanfranc wants to create the impression that he is only restat-
ing the position that the audience is already accustomed to. He does not take
back what he has said in De corpore 13–14, but by not mentioning it, he implies
that it is not important. Second, as in De corpore 13–14, Lanfranc here does his
best to balance between treating Christ’s flesh and Christ’s historical body as
two different entities and between treating them as one. Lanfranc’s statement
makes it clear that the piece of flesh on the altar and Christ’s historical body
are two distinct entities: they are in different locations and have different prop-
erties, ‘the Lord’s body itself existing in heaven’. At the same time, Lanfranc
works to emphasize the ‘essential’ unity of the two entities. When Lanfranc
states that ‘the earthly substances … are … converted … into the essence of
the Lord’s body’, this actually means that the bread converts into something
which has the same essence as Christ’s body; it does not convert into Christ’s
very body. It ‘can be truly said’ that the communicants receive ‘the very body
taken from the Virgin’ ‘as far as the essence and the character and power of
its true nature are concerned’. The emphasis on the essential identity of the
two entities virtually hides from view their numerical distinctness. Third, in
De corpore 18, Christ’s historical body is considered in a different perspective
than earlier in the work. In De corpore 13–14, Christ’s historical body is treated
as suffering on the Cross, whereas it is treated as presently existing in heaven
in De corpore 18. Lanfranc fails to mention that the body now in heaven is the
same as the body that once suffered on the Cross. He had good reasons for
being vague about this. The idea that the piece of flesh which is broken under
the appearance of the bread is a sacred sign of Christ’s suffering body is already
plausible by virtue of its piety, but Christ’s present existence elsewhere com-
plicates the picture. Even though Berengar upheld that the consecrated bread
is a sacred sign of Christ’s body in its present existence, nowhere in De corpore
does Lanfranc address the question whether the piece of flesh on the altar is a
sign referring to Christ’s body now in heaven.
Lanfranc’s official statement of the Eucharistic doctrine in De corpore 18 does
not, therefore, help the reader to a clear understanding of what Lanfranc’s ex-
plication of the doctrine actually includes. On the contrary, Lanfranc strives to
hide some central features of the model that he developed in De corpore 9–14:
he works to obscure that the piece of flesh on the altar is an entity distinct from
Christ’s historical body, and he leaves unsaid that the piece of flesh is a sac-
rament or a sacred sign of Christ’s historical body. Why did Lanfranc present
his elaboration of the Eucharistic doctrine at all, if he did not want the audi-
ence to get a clear understanding of it? The answer is related to the rhetorical
objectives of De corpore and the circumstance that the primary audience of
De corpore consists of two radically different parts. The main part of the au-
dience is the clerical and monastic audience in Normandy and its surround-
ings. In addition, there is the formal recipient of the treatise, Berengar of Tours.
With the aid of De corpore, Lanfranc wants to bring about different kinds of
effects in the two parts of the audience.
Lanfranc’s overall aim in De corpore was to create the impression—to his
chosen general audience, that is to say—that he, Lanfranc, not only offers a
definitive refutation of Berengar’s Scriptum but also defeats the Berengarian
heresy for once and for all. To achieve this, he systematically misleads the
audience about the content of what Berengar had said to make him appear
illogical and to be able to present imposing criticisms of his (alleged) ideas
and arguments. Lanfranc also systematically misleads the audience about the
facts of the Berengarian affair and about the state of the Eucharistic doctrine
at the time. He uses different kinds of rhetorical accusations and insinuations
to undermine Berengar’s credibility and builds a picture of himself as a true
erudite who is also an ardent defender of the one true faith. Lanfranc suc-
ceeded in all this remarkably well. When the first audience of De corpore, the
local audience in Normandy and its surroundings, became acquainted with
the treatise, it would inescapably get the general impressions that Lanfranc
wanted it to have. However, few persons among that audience would be able
to reconstruct the underlying theory of the Eucharist in De corpore. This did
not diminish the effectiveness of the treatise. Even otherwise, De corpore is
replete with statements that the ordinary reader will not fully understand, but
this only serves to reinforce the picture that the author is a highly learned and
very intelligent person.
My suggestion is that Lanfranc devised his theory of the Eucharist for the
formal recipient of the treatise, Berengar of Tours. Many of the details in
De corpore have been specifically designed for Berengar’s eyes. Berengar was
a formidable opponent in literary warfare. The events in 1059 showed that he
could be intimidated in a synod, but they also showed that he would not give
up easily (see 6.2). Lanfranc expected that Berengar would try to reply to De
corpore, as he had replied to the synod in Rome by composing the Scriptum.
Berengar did as might be expected: he wrote Rescriptum contra Lanfrannum. It
is a long treatise, at least four of five times as long as De corpore, and Berengar
must have spent a considerable amount of time in writing it. Significantly,
however, he never published his rejoinder. Why not? Obviously, Lanfranc had
succeeded in making his rhetorical case in De corpore so strong that, in the end,
Berengar came to the conclusion that replying served no purpose: he would
never be able to offer a reply that would convince Lanfranc’s chosen audience,
136 Chapter 6
the believers in Normandy and its surroundings. This is reflected in a change

in the style of the Rescriptum: towards the end it turns into a bitter monologue
which no longer attempts to persuade an audience.73
Several features of De corpore serve to make an effective reply to it difficult
for Berengar. By destroying Berengar’s credibility, Lanfranc makes sure that the
audience will be suspicious of anything that Berengar ever says. He makes his
presentation highly complicated and at many points highly ambiguous, which
makes it difficult to ascertain what his exact views are. He presents so many
false assumptions, false reports, and false interpretations that the opponent
will have a lot of work in pointing them out, not to mention setting them
straight in a manner that will convince a hostile audience. Lanfranc’s theory of
the Eucharist serves a similar purpose.
What I am working towards is a suggestion concerning the motivation for
Lanfranc’s theory of the Eucharist in De corpore: he developed his theory in
order to make it as difficult as possible for Berengar to present an effective
reply. Lanfranc did not present a clear statement of his theory in De corpore,
but he could count on Berengar reconstructing it. The Rescriptum shows that
Berengar indeed did that, and he also did his best to find the weak points in
Lanfranc’s theory.74 However, Lanfranc’s theory is not open to the kind of criti-
cism that Berengar had presented in the Scriptum. Lanfranc’s theory of the
Eucharist effectively rebuts Berengar’s criticism in the Scriptum because that is
what it has been designed to do.75
In his attack against the synod of Rome in the Scriptum, Berengar assumes
that the synod, in effect, endorses the carnalist view which says that the bread
and wine convert into a piece of Christ’s flesh and a small amount of Christ’s
blood. Against this view, Berengar wants to defend a spiritual or intellectual
understanding of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist. According to Berengar, the
bread and wine do not cease to exist at the consecration but gain a new status
in that they become a sacrament of Christ’s body; as a sacrament, they can be
figuratively called Christ’s body (see 6.2). Berengar’s discussion in the Scriptum
assumes that the materialist piece-of-flesh theory and the spiritual sacrament
theory are two mutually exclusive alternatives and that the evidence for one is
evidence against the other.
73 For an analysis of Berengar’s Rescriptum, see Holopainen, Dialectic and Theology, 77–118,
chapter 4, ‘Berengar of Tours: Rescriptum contra Lanfrannum’. I was only partly aware of
the rhetorical aspects of Lanfranc’s De corpore when writing this.
75 See also Holopainen, ‘“Lanfranc of Bec” and Berengar of Tours’, 112–16.
Lanfranc’s theory of the Eucharist entirely changes this basic configuration.

On the one hand, Lanfranc defends the view which Berengar identifies as the
vulgar view: the bread and wine do not survive the consecration but change
into a piece of Christ’s flesh and a small amount of his blood. On the other
hand, Lanfranc includes all the basic claims in Berengar’s sacrament theory
in his own theory: there is something visible and something invisible in the
Eucharistic sacrifice; there is the sacrament (sacramentum) and there is the
thing of the sacrament (res sacramenti); the thing that is the sacrament is a
sacred sign of the thing of the sacrament; the thing of the sacrament is Christ’s
historical body, which is now situated in heaven; the thing that is the sacra-
ment is not Christ’s body but it can be figuratively called Christ’s body. To make
these claims compatible with the carnalist view, Lanfranc makes a distinction
between Christ’s flesh and Christ’s body and identifies the piece of flesh on the
altar as the thing that is the sacrament. By including much of Berengar’s theory
in his own theory, Lanfranc makes it difficult for Berengar to renew his positive
claims about the Eucharist in the Scriptum. The carnalist theory and the sac-
rament theory are no longer mutually exclusive alternatives. Berengar should
find clear evidence that the authoritative writings support his version of the
sacrament theory and not Lanfranc’s. He tried to do that in the Rescriptum but
he was obviously not satisfied with the result.76
What is more, Lanfranc’s theory serves to block Berengar’s logical argument
against the text of the 1059 synod (cf. 6.3). Berengar claims that the synod
cannot deny the survival of the bread and wine because it presents affirma-
tive claims about the bread and wine after the consecration. In De corpore,
Lanfranc systematically avoids presenting claims about the bread and wine
after the consecration, and his theory of the Eucharist makes it possible that
he can do it consistently. For Lanfranc, it is not the bread and wine that are the
sacrament in the Eucharist; Christ’s flesh and blood are the sacrament. In the
same way, it is not the bread and wine that are called Christ’s body and blood;
Christ’s flesh and blood are called Christ’s body and blood. The formulations
that the synod used imply that there is some object that can simultaneously
be called both ‘a sacrament’ and ‘Christ’s body and blood’. Lanfranc’s theory
includes such an object: the piece of Christ’s flesh and the small amount of his
blood which are masked under the appearances of the bread and wine.77
76 Books II and III of the Rescriptum, ed. Huygens, 101–211, include numerous quotations
from what were considered authoritative writings, often with extensive analysis or short
analytical remarks.
77 See also Montclos, Lanfranc et Bérenger, 276–77, 284–88.
138 Chapter 6
Lanfranc maintains that his understanding of the Eucharist is the same as

that of the 1059 synod. He thus invites Berengar to interpret the synod’s text
in the light of what he says in De corpore. From this standpoint, the affirma-
tive claims that the synod authorizes are not about the bread and wine but
about Christ’s flesh and blood that can figuratively be called ‘bread and wine’.
Lanfranc introduces the idea that Christ’s body or flesh can be figuratively
called ‘the bread’ earlier in De corpore.78 The idea is restated towards the end
of the treatise:
When the appellation ‘bread’ is used, this takes place in the accustomed
fashion of the sacred writings, where some things are frequently called
with the names of those things of which they are made, or which they
are supposed to be but are not, or to which they are similar in some re-
spect. … In this way Christ’s body is also called ‘the bread’, either because
it is made of bread, or because it looks like bread to the eyes of those who
watch, when it is flesh, or because it is connected to the corporeal and
visible bread by some kind of similarity.79
Even though Lanfranc speaks here misleadingly of ‘Christ’s body’, the point he
wants to establish is that the piece of Christ’s flesh on the altar can be figura-
tively called ‘the bread’. If we read Lanfranc’s theory into the text of the 1059
synod, imposing a new interpretation on it, it starts to seem that the synod did
not, after all, present any affirmative claims about the bread and wine after
the consecration. Even though the synod appears to be presenting such affir-
mations, these should be understood to be about a piece of flesh and a small
amount of blood which are figuratively called ‘the bread and wine’. Lanfranc
does not directly claim that this is what the synod meant, but it does follow
from the assumption that Lanfranc and the synod represent the same teaching
about the Eucharist.
Lanfranc’s reply to Berengar’s logical argument is an important example of
the double strategy that he employs in De corpore. Lanfranc has something to
offer to the local audience in Normandy, and he has something to offer to the
formal recipient of the treatise. His strategy for the local audience is to mislead
it about the content of what Berengar says, to repudiate the suggestion that the
synod’s text could be in any way inconsistent, and to create the impression that
he has offered a definitive refutation of Berengar’s argument(s). Lanfranc real-
izes this strategy in De corpore 2–8, and the main audience of De corpore will
78 De corpore 6, 416C–D; 8, 419A–B.

79 De corpore 20, 438A–D.
not bother about the logical argument after that—if it has ever got the idea
of what it really is about. As for Berengar, Lanfranc uses an entirely different
strategy. There appears to be no direct reference to the logical argument after
De corpore 8, but Lanfranc knew that Berengar would analyse De corpore, try-
ing to figure out what entities are involved, what properties they have, and
what predications Lanfranc makes about them. Using this method, an intel-
ligent reader—Berengar or Jean de Montclos—will arrive at the underlying
theory of the Eucharist in De corpore. The intelligent reader will also relate
Lanfranc’s theory to the other statements on the Eucharist that are relevant
in the context. Lanfranc could count on Berengar checking whether his the-
ory of the Eucharist is compatible with the text of the synod. When impos-
ing Lanfranc’s theory on the synod’s text, Berengar would notice that it can
be done. The resulting interpretation of the text is artificial but it is neverthe-
less a coherent one. What is more, it will be difficult for Berengar to criticize
Lanfranc for imposing this artificial interpretation on the synod’s text because
Lanfranc is careful not to explicitly suggest that the synod’s text needs to be
interpreted in a special way. If Lanfranc adopted the idea of Christ’s flesh as
a sacred sign because of its usefulness in anti-Berengarian polemics, this puts
the whole effort of De corpore in a rather peculiar light.
Chapter 7
Anselm and Lanfranc’s Heritage
7.1 The Faith and Reason Issue
When Anselm first published the text of the Proslogion, he gave it the title Faith
Seeking Understanding. Obviously, Anselm meant the work as a contribution
to reflection about the relationship between faith and reason. One of the main
problems in modern Anselm scholarship has been that of spelling out the con-
tent of Anselm’s contribution regarding the topic, and widely differing inter-
pretations of Anselm’s position have been proposed. Anselm’s contribution to
the faith and reason issue in the Proslogion will be a major underlying theme in
the remaining parts of the present study. Part 3 analyses some relevant aspects
of the Proslogion itself. The present chapter creates the historical context for
the effort by describing the background of the Proslogion regarding the topic:
the conflicting views about theology and faith and reason in the immediate
environment.
The reappraisal of the treatise De corpore et sanguine Domini attributed to
Lanfranc makes it necessary to think again about how the faith and reason
issue behind the Proslogion ought to be construed. How should we see the
role of De corpore in the discussion when it turns out that this treatise does
not reflect Lanfranc’s genuine views at all points? Should we just ignore it, as
Eadmer does in his discussion of Anselm’s relation to Lanfranc in Vita Anselmi
(see 5.3)? Furthermore, the view that there was a conflict between Anselm and
Lanfranc about the Monologion also rests on the assumption that De corpore
can serve as a guide to Lanfranc’s views. When we drop that assumption, it
becomes necessary to think again about the purpose and tone of the exchange
between Anselm and Lanfranc. In the end, the role of the Monologion in the
background of the Proslogion needs to be reconsidered. Anselm wanted the
two treatises to be seen as a pair, but they are a peculiar pair and it is not im-
mediately clear how they relate from a methodological point of view.
Ignoring De corpore in the present context would not be a viable solution.
We know that De corpore cannot serve as a guide to Lanfranc’s views, and
Anselm and Lanfranc knew as much, but the case was different for the main
part of Anselm’s first audience. Anselm wrote his early treatises at the monas-
tery of Bec in Normandy, and De corpore had been written in the same place

Anselm and Lanfranc ’ s Heritage 141
some fifteen years earlier.1 The primary audience of Anselm’s early treatises is
the same as the audience of De corpore: the local monastic and clerical audi-
ence in Normandy and its surroundings in the 1060s and 1070s (after 1066 also
including England, which became part of the Norman realm). That audience
would see De corpore as a guide to Lanfranc’s views, and many would see it as
a guide to the orthodox understanding of what theology is. Hence, De corpore
was an important part of the social reality in which Anselm was working when
he composed his early treatises. De corpore represented Lanfranc’s heritage
regarding theological methodology, and compared to it, Lanfranc’s genuine
views on faith and reason are and were of minor importance.
De corpore advocates an understanding of faith and doctrine which leaves
little room for rationally oriented theological inquiry (see 7.2 below). For rea-
sons explained in a previous chapter (see 5.3), it is probable that Anselm and
Lanfranc worked together to create De corpore, and this also applies to the
position on faith and reason that was expressed in the treatise. The position
served their short-term interests in the rhetorical attack on Berengar of Tours.2
However, the heritage of De corpore became a burden to Anselm in the long
run and he wanted to free himself from it. It seems that one of the motives
behind the Monologion is that of undoing some of the damage that De cor-
pore had caused in respect to rationally oriented theology, and I will maintain
that Anselm sought Lanfranc’s help in publishing the treatise and that they
worked together to counteract ‘Lanfranc’s heritage’. In this construal, there is
no conflict between Anselm and Lanfranc about the Monologion but instead
cooperation in its publication. There was tension in the air, nevertheless, and
at some moments Anselm and Lanfranc could not take the other’s willingness
to cooperate for granted (see 7.4).
Anselm completed the Monologion a little before he composed the
Proslogion, and the former treatise is obviously an important part of the back-
ground for the latter. As was said, however, it is not immediately clear what
the relation between the two treatises is, and it is easy to misunderstand their
relation, especially if one misunderstands the exchange between Anselm and
1 If it should be the case that Lanfranc composed De corpore only after he had moved to Caen
(cf. 5.3), this does not significantly change the situation. The primary audience would have
been the same anyway.
2 If it should be the case that Lanfranc composed De corpore single-handedly, only some minor
details in the story need to be changed. If Anselm was not involved in the composition of
De corpore himself, he still did not have any illusions about the nature of the treatise, and
Lanfranc knew that.
142 Chapter 7
Lanfranc. It is sometimes assumed that Anselm composed the Proslogion in

reply to the criticism that the Monologion had elicited, first from Lanfranc and
later, after the publication of the treatise, from the audience.3 It is sometimes
also assumed that Anselm revised his views about faith and reason between
the Monologion and the Proslogion and distanced himself in the latter treatise
from the rational method in the former. There are several problems in such
a construal. First, it does not appreciate the difference between publishing
in an eleventh-century monastery and publishing at later times in different
kinds of environments. It appears that Anselm restricted the circulation of
the Monologion for several years and tried to make sure that only persons who
could profit from reading it would have access to it. Even though some copies
of the Monologion were made and circulated, it cannot be said that the trea-
tise would have been fully published before around 1083.4 Second, Lanfranc’s
prudential admonitions are the most important evidence of direct criticism
of the Monologion at this early stage, and Anselm did not see them as a rea-
son to change his position. Third, the idea that Anselm in the Proslogion dis-
tances himself from the rational method in the Monologion is highly dubious.
If Anselm had come to regret some features of the Monologion, he could have
made the changes that he saw as necessary in the work. He actually did make
changes in the Monologion at different stages (see 7.3).
If the Proslogion is not to be seen as Anselm’s reply to the adverse reac-
tions that the Monologion (allegedly) caused in the audience, how should we
understand the relation between the two treatises? My suggestion is that the
Proslogion should be seen as part of Anselm’s attempt to pre-empt adverse reac-
tions that the Monologion might provoke in a larger audience. The Monologion
offered an alternative to the model of theology that De corpore had endorsed,
but there was the very real risk that the audience influenced by ‘Lanfranc’s
heritage’ would find Anselm’s rigorously rational method in the treatise offen-
sive. The devotional exercise in the Proslogion presents the search for ratio-
nal insight in a framework that a conservative monastic audience would find
attractive. Instead of distancing himself from the method in the Monologion,
3 Cf. Toivo J. Holopainen, ‘Logic and Theology in the Eleventh Century: Anselm and Lanfranc’s
Heritage’, in G. E. M. Gasper and H. Kohlenberger (eds.), Anselm and Abelard: Investigations
and Juxtapositions (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2006), 1–16.
4 For publishing in the eleventh-century context, see Richard Sharpe, ‘Anselm as Author:
Publishing in the Late Eleventh Century’, The Journal of Medieval Latin 19 (2009), 1–87. When
Anselm at an early stage sent the Monologion to Abbot Rainaldus, he advised the abbot to
give the treatise only to reasonable and peaceful persons in order to avoid unsubstantiated
criticism. Ep. 83, S III, 207–208. The publication history of the Monologion will be discussed
in 7.3–7.4 and 9.1.
Anselm seeks in the Proslogion to justify that method in the view of a conserva-
tive audience (see Part 3). Even though the Proslogion was composed after the
Monologion, it can be said that it prepares the ground for the publication of the
Monologion: the Monologion was allowed to have wider circulation only after it
was complemented by the Proslogion as its companion.
The following two sections discuss some relevant aspects of De corpore and
Monologion, respectively (7.2 and 7.3). There then follows a discussion of the
first publication of the Monologion and the exchange between Anselm and
Lanfranc related to it (7.4). The chapter will end with some reflections on how
the conflicting views about faith and reason called for the publication of some
text like the Proslogion (7.5).
7.2 De corpore on Faith and Reason
It can be said that De corpore is Lanfranc’s heritage regarding theological meth-

od because the contemporary audience saw it as a guide to Lanfranc’s views. To
describe that heritage, what is needed is not an in-depth analysis of Lanfranc’s
putative views. Instead, we need to focus on the general impressions that
De corpore gives and the attitudes that it fosters. It is here that the true import
of De corpore as part of the background for the Proslogion lies.
De corpore is Lanfranc’s reply to Berengar’s Scriptum contra synodum which,
for its part, is an attack on a decision of the 1059 synod of Rome. In the Scriptum,
Berengar appeals to reason and logic on the one hand and to the authoritative
writings of the Church on the other. He appeals to reason and logic when he
presents what I call his ‘logical argument’ (6.3). He appeals to the authorita-
tive writings when he presents a dossier of authoritative citations to warrant
his idea of the Eucharist as a sacrament (6.4). Berengar’s procedure in the
Scriptum reflects his conviction that theological disagreements in the Church
should be solved by thorough investigation of the authoritative writings and
the intelligent interpretation of them.5 At the level of principle, there is little in
Berengar’s methodology that an earnest theological opponent could complain
about. It is difficult to see how theological disagreements could be handled if
not by following the kind of method assumed by Berengar—even if one were
to disagree about what the relevant set of authoritative writings is and whose
task it is to investigate and interpret those writings. On a more concrete level, it
5 For an analysis of Berengar’s views on the method in his main work, Rescriptum contra
Lanfrannum, see Toivo J. Holopainen, Dialectic and Theology in the Eleventh Century (Leiden:
Brill, 1996), 108–18.
144 Chapter 7
would be easy to criticize Berengar’s use of authoritative writings at a number

of points. However, the method that an earnest opponent would apply in such
criticism would largely be based on the kind of principles that Berengar him-
self applies, and an earnest opponent would be ready to admit it.
It is clear that the author of De corpore gave a considerable amount of
thought to methodological issues. However, he did not do it to develop a sound
methodology but to be able to create impressions that could serve in the rhe-
torical attack on Berengar. De corpore systematically builds up a complex set of
general impressions on methods issues that suit Lanfranc’s purposes. To begin
with, the reader is led to believe that Berengar almost invariably mispresents
the content of the authoritative passages that he appeals to (see 6.4). Further,
the reader gains the impression that there is serious trouble in the way Berengar
uses reason: Lanfranc succeeds in making the reader doubt Berengar’s sanity.
What is more, Lanfranc creates the impression that Berengar’s attitude towards
the authority and reason issue is fundamentally different from the orthodox
attitude. The highly suggestive discussion about logic and its use in theology
in De corpore 7 is part of Lanfranc’s attempt to make the audience see the dif-
ference in a certain way (see 6.3 and below in this section). However, there are
suggestive remarks in other places as well, and the general framework of the
treatise is also heavily loaded from a methodological point of view.
Lanfranc’s elaboration of the Eucharistic doctrine in De corpore is an amal-
gamation of Berengar’s sacrament theory and the carnalist view: he suggests
that the bread turns into a piece of flesh which is a sacrament or sacred sign of
Christ’s historical body. It is likely that Lanfranc developed this idiosyncratic
model mainly in view of Berengar; the idea of the Eucharist that the general
audience was meant to get from the treatise was different and vaguer (see 6.4
and 6.5). However, there is a very strong idea of another kind that the general
audience will get: Lanfranc’s view of the Eucharist is the view that the Church
has always preached everywhere and will incessantly preach among all na-
tions. Throughout De corpore, Lanfranc builds a highly idealized picture of a
unitary Church with a unitary teaching. There is no need for theological inves-
tigation in the Church, because the one Catholic truth is immediately present
everywhere in the teaching of the Church. There is no room for theological
disagreement within the Church, because the teaching of the Church is unani-
mous and it is simply not possible that it could be false.6 What is required of
6 De corpore 1, 407A–B, ed. Huygens, 239, lines 9–17; 4, 414A; 22–23, 440D–442D. For the editions
of De corpore and the mode of referencing them, see note 3 in 5.1 above. For Lanfranc’s views
about Church and faith, see also H. E. J. Cowdrey, Lanfranc: Scholar, Monk, and Archbishop
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 68.
Christians is that they believe what the Church teaches, and they will get a
reward for their faith. There are some perverted persons, heretics like Berengar,
who are not satisfied with simple faith but pry into things that are beyond
human capacity. Instead of living by faith, as the righteous person does, they
want to have rational grounds for everything. Heretic thinkers argue for their
false views and mislead simple people through their arguments.7 Catholic
thinkers like Lanfranc argue against the heretics. They can appeal to reason
to show the absurdity of the views of the heretics, but generally they should
only use authority arguments.8 When it comes to synods, there is no need for
theological reflection in them. The fathers who are present in the synod will
pronounce the true faith. The decisions of the synods immediately become
part of the authoritative writings of the Church.9
The attitudes just described are part of Lanfranc’s rhetorical attack on
Berengar of Tours. Berengar took it for granted that theological disagreements
in the Church should be solved through intelligent interpretation of the au-
thoritative writings by learned persons like himself and Cardinal Hildebrand.
In Berengar’s model, both authoritative writings and rational argument have
an important role.10 In his rhetorical reply, Lanfranc makes a number of subtle
moves. First, he strives to create the impression that there simply cannot be
any significant disagreement within the Church. Consequently, there is no
need for a method for solving theological disagreements. Second, Lanfranc
makes the authority issue appear in a different perspective. Of course, he does
not question the authoritativeness of the sacred writings. However, the im-
mediate authority is not in the writings but in the teaching and preaching of
the Church. Lanfranc shares in the authority of the Church and he can speak
for the Church. He can also tell Berengar how the one true Church interprets
the writings. Third, Lanfranc does not question the validity of reason on a
general level, but he makes it clear that following reason can be highly dan-
gerous. The readers should distrust rational arguments and be satisfied with
simple believing.11
The discussion about logic and theology in De corpore 7 is related to the
same framework. Lanfranc creates here the impression that he and Berengar
make use of strongly opposing methodologies: Berengar relies on the art of
7 De corpore 1, 407A–409B, ed. Huygens, 239–40, lines 3–51; 10, 421D; 17, 427A–B.
8 De corpore 4, 413B, ed. Huygens, 245, lines 175–80; 7, 416D–417A.
9 De corpore 1, 408B–C, ed. Huygens, 240–41, lines 51–64; 4, 414D.
11 See also Toivo J. Holopainen, ‘“Lanfranc of Bec” and Berengar of Tours’, in David Bates
(ed.), Anglo-Norman Studies 34. Proceedings of the Battle Conference 2011 (Woodbridge:
Boydell Press, 2012), 105–21, at 119–20.
146 Chapter 7
logic, whereas Lanfranc relies on sacred authority.12 The contrast between logic
and authority is, obviously, related to the contrast between reason and rational
grounds, on the one hand, and authority and faith, on the other. However, the
relation between reason and logic in this context is not as straightforward as
might appear. At the closing period of the early Middle Ages, many people saw
logic or dialectic as the representative of reason (cf. 4.1), but this does not apply
to the kind of audience that De corpore mainly addresses. Many members of
this audience only had elementary knowledge of logic, and they would have an
ambivalent attitude towards this art. They would appreciate logic because of
its rationality, but at the same time they would distrust logic even more than
they would distrust reason in general because they did not fully understand
logical techniques and because some people were apparently capable of prov-
ing anything whatsoever with the aid of logic. Logic was associated with ratio-
nality, but it was also associated with sophistry and deception.
In the Scriptum, Berengar presented his logical argument against the text
of the 1059 synod. There are some weaknesses in the way Berengar present-
ed the argument, but the actual point he makes is a strong one. If a person
presents an affirmative claim about an object, then that person certainly as-
sumes that the object in question exists (in the relevant sense of existing).
Berengar’s logical argument posed a genuine challenge to Lanfranc, and the
strategy that Lanfranc used in meeting the challenge included various strands
that have been discussed above (6.3 and 6.5). De corpore 7 is an important part
of Lanfranc’s reply. The discussion in it serves to mislead the audience about
what Berengar’s argument actually is. Further, it creates the false impression
that Lanfranc successfully refutes Berengar’s argument(s) on logical grounds.
At the same time, Lanfranc works to strengthen the distrust that the audience
already feels towards the use of logic, and he creates the impression that his
method is the very opposite of Berengar’s method when it comes to the use of
logic (see 6.3).
The picture that De corpore 7 gives is the following.13 In his argumentation,
the heretic Berengar abandons the sacred writings and appeals to logic alone.
What is more, it turns out that Berengar’s use of logic is mere sophistry and
aims at deceiving the audience. Fortunately, there is Lanfranc who can show
12 De corpore 7, 416D: ‘LANFR. Relictis sacris auctoritatibus, ad dialecticam confugium

facis.’ See also 6.3 above.
13 See De corpore 7, 416D–418C. It needs to be emphasized that I am here describing a pic-
ture that the author of De corpore seeks to create and that that picture is false. For what is
really going on, see 6.3.
this. Lanfranc is able to meet Berengar on the latter’s favourite ground and
show the ineptness of Berengar’s procedure. Lanfranc’s own method is differ-
ent. His chosen way is to appeal to the authoritative writings and not make
use of techniques that would be recognized as logical. The reason is not that
he does not master the art. Lanfranc assures us that he knows logic at least as
well as Berengar, and his expertise in this area becomes clear from his remarks
that are so erudite that the ordinary reader should not expect to be able to
understand them. In principle, there is nothing wrong in the use of logic, and
Augustine also affirms its usefulness for theological discussion. However, it is
not appropriate to make explicit use of logic in treatments of sacred matters.
One can make the required points without resorting to logical presentation,
and often it is possible to quote authoritative writings instead. Even though
Lanfranc will use the tools of logic to tear down Berengar’s arguments in
De corpore 7, the reader should understand that this is an exception and that it
is Berengar’s fault that Lanfranc has had to make that exception. As a rule, the
explicit use of logic in discussion of sacred matters is out of place.
In sum, De corpore endorses an authoritarian and conservative attitude to-
wards matters of faith. De corpore has little tolerance for theological reflec-
tion or the intelligent interpretation of the sacred writings. The Catholic truth
is what the Church has always preached everywhere, and there is no need to
go beyond that. What is expected of Christians is that they believe what the
Church teaches and they will get a reward for their faith. As Berengar’s exam-
ple shows, asking for rational grounds can be conducive to heresy. The use of
logical tools in the treatment of theological topics is simply not appropriate.
7.3 The Monologion on Faith and Reason
Anselm’s Monologion and the explicitly rational method he applies there have
already been treated in Part 1 of the study (see especially 2.3 and 4.1). The dis-
cussion that follows will complement the previous treatment in that it takes
into account the historical context and is more sensitive to rhetorical con-
siderations. In this section, the focus is on the relation that the Monologion
has to ‘Lanfranc’s heritage’ on the faith and reason issue, that is to say, to the
kind of attitudes that De corpore would endorse in the audience. The follow-
ing section (7.4) discusses the exchange between Anselm and Lanfranc about
the Monologion and the first publication of the treatise. In this connection,
it is important to take into account that it is possible to distinguish at least
three subsequent early versions of the treatise. First, there is the text that
148 Chapter 7
Anselm sent to Lanfranc for inspection, presumably towards the end of the
year 1076.14 Second, there is what appears to be the first published version of
the Monologion, preserved in one early manuscript. Anselm completed this
version towards the end of 1077 or a little later.15 Third, around 1085 at the lat-
est there was in existence a text that is rather similar to the Monologion as
we usually know it.16 It is the two first-mentioned versions that will mainly
concern us here.
The manuscript that Anselm sent to Lanfranc for inspection has not come
down to us. However, it is possible to make plausible conjectures about it by
comparing the first published version of the Monologion to the later versions
of the treatise and by relating them to the other historical evidence. To begin
with, it appears that the main bulk of Anselm’s argumentation in the treatise
remained stable. As is well known, Anselm declined Lanfranc’s suggestion
that he should improve his text in particular ways.17 In addition, there is only
one significant change between the first published version and the later ver-
sions after chapter 1 of the treatise.18 Anselm was not processing the main part
of the treatise (from the middle of chapter 1 to chapter 80) at this stage, even
though there may be some occasional additions and corrections here and
there.19 Further, the well-reflected division into chapters is an integral feature
of the treatise, and there are only a few minor changes in the list of chapters
between the first published version and the later versions.20 It is plausible to
think that the division into chapters was part of the original manuscript, but
it may be that there were only numbers in the margin to indicate the division
and not yet any chapter headings. It is possible that even the chapter numbers
did not yet exist and the division was only indicated through typographical
means, such as special initials.
There are some major differences in the beginning of the treatise between
the first published version and the later versions, and some major differences
can be postulated between the manuscript that Anselm sent to Lanfranc and
14 Anselm sent the manuscript to Lanfranc together with Ep. 72, S III, 193–94.
15 The early manuscript is BNF lat. 13413 fols. 1–57 (Schmitt’s manuscript S). See S I, 3 (Index
siglorum), the apparatus for the earlier recension (Prior recensio) in S I, 7–15, and Sharpe,
‘Anselm as Author’, 23, 80 and 86.
16 Sharpe, ‘Anselm as Author’, 86, calls it ‘Monologion as published’ and gives the date ‘in or
after 1083’.
17 See Ep. 77, S III, 199–200 and 7.4 below.
18 See the apparatus for the earlier recension in Monologion 3, S I, 16. Schmitt reports some
fifteen changes later in the treatise, but they are all quite small.
19 Some remarks concerning the method and the nature of the work may be additions. See
note 41 below.
20 S I, 9–12 (Capitula).
the first published version. At least six components are relevant here: the letter
of dedication, the preface, the list of chapters, the title, the author’s name, and
the introduction. Of these, only the list of chapters might be a constant ingre-
dient if it was included in the original version. The manuscript that Anselm
sent to Lanfranc did not include a letter of dedication. Instead, the manuscript
was accompanied by a separate covering letter (Letter 72). The letter of dedi-
cation was added to the first published version (see 7.4), and it was included
in some early manuscripts of the later Monologion as well, but then it was
dropped.21 The manuscript that Anselm sent to Lanfranc did not include a pref-
ace, for several features of the preface indicate that it was composed only after
Lanfranc’s criticism and after Anselm’s reply to that criticism in Letter 77.22 It
did not include a title, for Anselm asked Lanfranc to give it a title.23 The first
published version of the treatise carried the title Exemplum meditandi de ra-
tione fidei (An Example of Meditating on the Reason in Faith), and in the later
versions Anselm changed it to Monoloquium de ratione fidei (A Soliloquy on
the Reason in Faith) and subsequently to Monologion.24 In the first published
version, Anselm’s name appeared only in the letter of dedication, but later he
started to append his name to the title of the treatise.25 Finally, in the first
published version there is a short introduction between the list of chapters
and the beginning of chapter 1. In the later versions, this introduction became
merged into chapter 1.26 There probably was a similar short introduction in the
21 See the apparatus in S I, 5–6 (Letter to Archbishop Lanfranc); Cowdrey, Lanfranc, 211;
Sharpe, ‘Anselm as Author’, 16. Because the letter of dedication includes a substantial ref-
erence to the preface, it cannot have been added before the preface.
22 See Monologion, Prologus (in the earlier recension called ‘Prooemium’), S I, 8–9;
Ep. 77, 199–200. If the preface had already been included in the manuscript submitted
to Lanfranc, Lanfranc could hardly have made the suggestion that Anselm should add
references to the authoritative writings at some points. Also, Anselm would refer to the
preface in Ep. 77, and he would not need to explain how what he treats is based on the
writings of the Church fathers, especially Augustine’s De trinitate. See also 7.4 below.
23 Ep. 72, 193.15–18.
24 See the apparatus for Monologion 1 in S I, 13. See also Proslogion, preface, S I, 94.2–13 and
Ep. 109, S III, 242.7–12. For the history of the titles, see also 9.1 below.
25 Monologion, Letter to Archbishop Lanfranc, S I, 5.4–5: ‘frater ANSELMUS Beccensis, vita
peccator, habitu monachus’. In Proslogion, preface, S I, 94.8–13, Anselm explains that sev-
eral persons, including Archbishop Hugh of Lyon, had asked him to add his name to the
titles of his two first treatises. Anselm’s saying this invites the inference that the treatises
were first circulated anonymously. See, for example, Sharpe, ‘Anselm as Author’, 17–19.
However, the earliest surviving version of the Monologion was not anonymous in any real
sense, as the author’s identity is clearly indicated in the letter of dedication.
26 See the apparatus for Monologion 1 in S I, 13–14. The number ‘I’ in the margin, to indicate
the beginning of the first chapter, was at 14.5: ‘Cum tam innumerabilia bona sint …’
150 Chapter 7
manuscript that Anselm sent to Lanfranc. In addition to the differences in the

beginning of the treatise, there is a major difference that is not in the treatise
itself: the later Monologion was accompanied by the Proslogion, whereas the
first published version was not.
To look at the same issues from a different viewpoint, my reconstruction
of the early versions of the Monologion and their relations is as follows. The
manuscript that Anselm sent to Lanfranc included a short introduction (cor-
responding to the first paragraph of the later Monologion 1) and chapters 1–80.
The chapter division was indicated by numbers in the margin or through typo-
graphical means, and there was probably no list of chapters at the beginning.
For the earliest published version, Anselm added the letter of dedication, the
preface, the list of chapters if it was not included in the original version, and
the title Exemplum meditandi de ratione fidei, and perhaps made some textual
changes as well.27 A little later he made a number of changes: he simplified the
structure by merging the separate introduction into the first chapter and made
some textual changes in the introductory remark and elsewhere; he changed
the title first to Monoloquium de ratione fidei and then to Monologion; he es-
tablished the Monologion and the Proslogion as a pair of works; he appended
his name to the title of the work. Still later, he left out the letter of dedication.
The present discussion aims at offering a characterization of the Monologion
that applies to all the early versions of the treatise, including the version that
Anselm sent to Lanfranc for inspection. For this reason, I leave the preface
to the Monologion aside and concentrate instead on the argumentation that
Anselm presents. (Some further remarks about the preface will be made in
the following section.) Because the relevant aspects of the Monologion have al-
ready been treated earlier (see 2.3 and 4.1), some brief remarks will suffice here.
After a characterization of the aim, scope, and method of the Monologion,
some comparisons between the Monologion and De corpore will be made.
Anselm’s overall aim in the Monologion is to offer a reconstruction of the
basic tenets in the Christian understanding of reality on the basis of reason
alone. The way Anselm carries out his argumentation makes it clear that
he wanted to present a rational argument. In the Monologion Anselm never
27 Sharpe states in ‘Anselm as Author’, 17, that when Anselm sent his first treatise to Abbot
Rainaldus, it was ‘still untitled’. That is to say, Sharpe is implying that before the first sur-
viving version of the Monologion there was one still earlier version that Anselm circu-
lated. Anselm’s letter to Rainaldus, Ep. 83, S III, 207–208, does not actually give grounds
for any inference about the title or lack of title of the treatise. It is natural to assume
that the copy made for Rainaldus carried the title Exemplum meditandi de ratione fidei.
See also Toivo J. Holopainen, ‘On the Two Versions of the Proslogion’, Śląskie Studia
Historyczno-Teologiczne 47 (2014), 10–30, at 18–19.
appeals to authority to justify either some of his conclusions or some of his

premises. Instead, he builds his argument on notions that any rational person
in his view ought to accept. The introduction in the earliest surviving version,
later merged into chapter 1, accentuates the rational character of the treatise.
It claims that if there is someone who does not know those things that the
Christians believe about God and his Creation, he can, to a large extent, infer
them for himself if he is of at least average intelligence, and this is possible even
for a person who has not heard Christian preaching.28 The remark about what
an average non-Christian can infer is overly optimistic even from Anselm’s
mouth (see also 9.3). The remark serves several purposes. As was said, it ac-
centuates the rational nature of the Monologion. Further, the remark serves
to preclude the accusation that Anselm presents rational grounds because he
thinks that the Christian teaching needs rational grounds for its support. In
addition, the reference to at least average intelligence should make a potential
critic think twice before he utters his criticism.
Anselm’s method in the Monologion is rational in the sense that he eschews
appealing to sacred authority. The starting point is the knowledge that humans
can have on the basis of general experience independent of Christian (or other
religious) teaching. Thorough grounding in the liberal arts is assumed in the
Monologion. In particular, Anselm takes it for granted that those who partake in
the argumentation have advanced knowledge of logic or dialectic (see also 4.1).
The rational starting point puts limits on how far Anselm can go in his re-
construction of the Christian idea of reality in the Monologion. There is no ref-
erence to any specific historical events in the treatise. Neither the Fall nor the
Incarnation is mentioned or implied. The reconstruction in the Monologion
proceeds on unhistorical terms. There is a human being in the world and he
starts to think about some things in a rational manner. To begin with, it is es-
tablished that there is a Supreme Being and this Supreme Being has created
everything else from nothing. Further, it is established that the Supreme Being
has the kind of properties that the Christian reader will recognize as the prop-
erties of the divine essence. What is more, it proves to be the case that there
is a Trinitarian structure in the Supreme Being, consisting of a Father, a Son,
and their Spirit. Towards the end of the treatise the argumentation concen-
trates on the relation between the Supreme Being and the beings of a rational
nature, like humans. Among other things, it is established that the Supreme
Being is the proper object of human love, hope, and faith, and that the final
28 Monologion 1, S I, 14.5–11. In the earlier recension, the end of the passage (lines 10–11)
reads: ‘… nonne ea ipsa ex magna parte, si vel mediocris ingenii est, potest ipse sibi saltem
sola ratione persuadere?’
152 Chapter 7
destiny of a human being depends on his or her relation to the Supreme Being.
In the last chapter, the Supreme Being is identified as God. Anselm appeals
to what people who postulate one or more gods mean by the word ‘god’ and
argues that the Supreme Being is the only being that can adequately meet this
description (see 2.3).
When we look at the methodological aspects of the Monologion against the
background of the impressions that De corpore creates, it is illuminating to
compare the views about authority and reason in general, the role of logic or
dialectic in theology, and the role of faith. Here also, I leave the preface to the
Monologion out of account.
Neither De corpore nor the Monologion elaborates on the respective roles
of authority and reason in theology. There are both similarities and conspicu-
ous differences between these works or the impressions they give. The works
have in common that they rest on an undifferentiated notion of authority,
even though the motivation for this may well be different. In the Monologion,
the authority is only implicitly present (except for the first sentence). It is the
Christian idea of reality that will be reconstructed, and the actual readership is
familiar with it because it has ‘heard’ and ‘believed’.29 There is an idealized pic-
ture of the unitary teaching of the Church here, as in De corpore. (The preface
to the Monologion gives a different idea; see 7.4.)
When it comes to the respective roles of authority and reason in theologi-
cal presentations, De corpore and Monologion endorse quite different attitudes.
De corpore recommends simple believing and warns of applying reason in mat-
ters of faith. Relying on reason easily leads to heresy. The orthodox thinkers
usually appeal to sacred authority only, even though reason can legitimately
be used as well in some contexts, for example, in confuting the arguments of
heretics. Anselm’s procedure in the Monologion is in stark contrast with the
methodology that De corpore recommends. Anselm builds his presentation on
rational arguments alone and does not at all appeal to authority within the ar-
gument. While De corpore views reason as a threat to faith and sound doctrine,
the Monologion views it as a friend and an ally.
The same basic constellation applies to the art of logic or dialectic. De cor-
pore strives to strengthen the distrust that the audience already feels towards
the use of logic. Nevertheless, the audience rejoices in Lanfranc’s showpiece-
like use of logic against Berengar, being unable to detect the sophistic nature of
that use. The Monologion, for its part, is based on a sincere but non-ostentatious
use of logic. To begin with, the mode of presentation in the treatise comes from
the art of logic: Anselm seeks to make his arguments formally valid according

to the then current standards, and he seeks to start from the kind of premises
that would be considered as acceptable. What is more, some theories of dialec-
tic that can be characterized as ontological or metaphysical play a prominent
role in the Monologion. When Anselm treats the properties of the Supreme
Being, he offers critical discussions about how far the theories of predicables
and categories, which are metaphysical theories, apply to it (see 4.1). Regarding
the use of logic or dialectic in theology, the Monologion is on an entirely dif-
ferent level from De corpore. The last-mentioned treatise plays on the general
impressions that a half-educated audience has about the art. The Monologion
offers detailed critical discussions about how the metaphysical theories
in dialectic apply to the divine essence and, to some extent, to the three
Trinitarian persons.
There are differences between De corpore and the Monologion in the way
in which faith ( fides) is conceived. The conception of faith in De corpore can
be characterized as cognitive and authoritarian. The faith is a content, a set
of beliefs, that the fathers have handed down and the Church preaches. The
holding true of that set of beliefs can also be called faith. Believing is an act of
obedience towards an authority, and believers are entitled to receive a reward
for their faith. Anselm’s discussion about the relation of beings of a rational
nature to the Supreme Being in Monologion 66–78 sets faith in a different per-
spective. Also in the Monologion, the holding true of a set of beliefs is called
faith. As far as the framework of the Monologion is concerned, however, the
person has arrived at the relevant set of beliefs through his own efforts, and
not by listening to an authority. What is more, Anselm maintains that faith as
mere holding true is ‘dead faith’ ( fides mortua). What makes faith alive is love.
The ‘living faith’ ( fides viva) is based on the holding true of a set of beliefs, but
it is made alive by loving and striving: loving the Supreme Being and striving
towards it, and loving the good and just and striving to put it into effect.30 It is
for the loving and striving that the believer will get his or her reward and not
for the mere holding true.31 What Anselm says about faith in the Monologion
perhaps need not be in contradiction with what De corpore teaches, but the
emphasis is certainly in a different place.
To conclude, the Monologion is based on a very optimistic view of reason
and logic and the usefulness of their application in matters of faith. Anselm
is convinced that much of the content of the Christian teaching can be recon-
structed from a purely rational starting point. There may be cases in which rea-
son and the Christian teaching appear to be in conflict, but reason, sharpened

154 Chapter 7
by the art of logic, has the capability of correcting itself and qualifying its own
principles. Anselm’s optimistic view is in stark contrast with the heritage of
De corpore, which puts emphasis on authority and simple believing and en-
dorses a reserved attitude towards reason and logical arguments.
7.4 Anselm, Lanfranc, and the Publishing of the Monologion
Perhaps during the latter half of 1076, Anselm completed the original manu-
script of the Monologion. He did not hurry to publish the text. It had taken
him a long time to put together the complex and tightly interwoven argument
in the work, and there was no need for hurry. Besides, Anselm had reason to
fear that the audience would not welcome his treatise. In the potential audi-
ence, there were many who knew neither logic nor theology well enough to
be able to appreciate his argumentation. Much in the treatise would be sim-
ply incomprehensible to them. Further, it could be expected that some peo-
ple would object to Anselm’s strong reliance on reason and logic. One of the
motives behind the Monologion was to show that reason could have a truly
constructive role in the treatment of sacred matters (see also 9.3). What if the
audience were to see Anselm as another Berengar who, if we are to trust De
corpore, endorses heretical views and deceives the audience through sophistic
use of logical arguments? In that case, the publishing of the Monologion would
not help in undoing the damage that De corpore had caused to the prospect of
rationally oriented theological inquiry; quite the contrary, and Anselm himself
would get into serious trouble.
One possible precaution against adverse reactions that the Monologion
might elicit was to restrict its circulation. Anselm did that: for quite some time
he tried to make sure that only persons who could appreciate the Monologion
would have access to it.32 However, he did not let the treatise have any circu-
lation (beyond his own associates) before he had taken another measure: he
tried to obtain the patronage of an esteemed ecclesiastic for his work. This is
the reason why Anselm turned to Lanfranc and sent the manuscript to him for
inspection.33 There are several reasons why Anselm turned to him specifically.
32 See Anselm’s letter to Abbot Rainaldus, Ep. 83, S III, 207–208.

33 For Anselm’s exchange with Lanfranc and its consequences, see Coloman Viola, ‘Lanfranc
de Pavie et Anselme d’Aoste’, in Giulio d’Onofrio (ed.), Lanfranco di Pavia e l’Europa del
secolo XI (Rome: Herder, 1993), 531–94, at 542–78; R. W. Southern, Saint Anselm: A Portrait
in a Landscape (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 59–66, 71–73; Cowdrey,
Lanfranc, 207–11; Holopainen, ‘Logic and Theology’, 11–14; Toivo J. Holopainen, ‘The
Proslogion in Relation to the Monologion’, The Heythrop Journal 50 (2009), 590–602,
Lanfranc was his friend. As archbishop of Canterbury, Lanfranc was one of the
most esteemed churchmen within the Norman realm. Lanfranc was known as
the author of De corpore, and the approval of the author of De corpore would
be particularly valuable to Anselm. Lanfranc was also thoroughly familiar with
the background and nature of De corpore, and he was one of the very few per-
sons who could fully appreciate Anselm’s situation.
Anselm sent the manuscript of the Monologion to Lanfranc at Canterbury
by means of a messenger. The treatise was accompanied by a covering letter
(Letter 72), in which Anselm asks Lanfranc’s authorization for the treatise. If
Lanfranc approves the treatise, he should give it a title. If he disapproves of
it, he should have it destroyed. Anselm insists that Lanfranc himself should
decide the fate of the work; he did not wish for Lanfranc to delegate the matter
to someone else.34
The letter in which Lanfranc replied has not been preserved, but its main
content can be inferred from Anselm’s next letter to Lanfranc (Letter 77).
Lanfranc had not given his approval to the treatise, but he had not disapproved
of it either. He had listed some statements that in his view needed further con-
sideration, and apparently he had suggested that Anselm should cite authori-
tative writings at some points where reason fails. Lanfranc had been worried
that his admonitions would affect their personal relations. It also appears that
he had expressed his wish to be able to discuss the treatise with Anselm face
to face. In his reply, Anselm asserts that he has already considered the state-
ments in question to the best of his ability and that he has not alleged anything
that could not be readily defended by the authoritative writings, in particular
Augustine’s On the Trinity. He renews his request that Lanfranc either approve
or disapprove the treatise. He assures Lanfranc that the incident has not affect-
ed their relations, and he agrees about the desirability of discussions between
him and Lanfranc about the treatise.35
Because of Letter 77, it has often been claimed that the exchange between
Anselm and Lanfranc ended in an impasse. Anselm was not willing to make
at 599–600, 602; Eileen C. Sweeney, Anselm of Canterbury and the Desire for the Word
(Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2012), 61–63.
34 Anselm, Ep. 72, S III, 193–94. Together with Ep. 72, addressed to Lanfranc, Anselm sent
other letters. One of them, Ep. 74, S III, 195–96, is addressed to Maurice, a monk of Bec
staying at Canterbury. Anselm had asked Lanfranc to return the manuscript to Maurice
(unless he judges it should be destroyed), and he gives Maurice instructions about what
to do in different cases. For example, if Lanfranc makes corrections in the manuscript,
either Maurice himself should bring the manuscript to Anselm, or, if he cannot do this for
some time, he should find a reliable messenger to carry it as soon as possible.
35 Ep. 77, S III, 199–200.
156 Chapter 7
changes in the treatise and Lanfranc was not willing to approve of it as it

stood. As is well known, Anselm published the treatise a little later, and one
easily gains the impression that he published it without Lanfranc’s consent.
However, there are reasons for holding that this is a misperception. When
Anselm published the treatise, he prefixed to it a letter of dedication ad-
dressed to Lanfranc, thus suggesting that the treatise had Lanfranc’s approval.
It is hardly possible that Anselm would have added the letter of dedication
without Lanfranc’s explicit permission, given the outcome of the epistolary
exchange.36 Secondly, even though the letters discussed are an important part
of the exchange between Anselm and Lanfranc about the Monologion, we
should beware of assuming that the whole exchange took place through letters
and is sufficiently documented in the letters that have been preserved. The end
of Letter 77 suggests that both Anselm and Lanfranc saw it desirable that they
discuss Anselm’s treatise face to face.37
An occasion for conversation arose in the autumn of 1077 when Lanfranc
sojourned in Normandy for several weeks and visited the monastery of Bec at
least twice.38 No direct evidence about discussions concerning the Monologion
during Lanfranc’s visits has been preserved, but it is virtually certain that there
were such discussions. The first published version of the Monologion appears
to have emerged as a result of these discussions. The fact that this version be-
gins with the letter of dedication addressed to Lanfranc strongly suggests that
Lanfranc in the end gave his support to the publication of the treatise—as
Anselm could already expect on the basis of Lanfranc’s first reply.39 However,
the archbishop was not willing to give his explicit approval to Anselm’s trea-
tise. The letter of dedication at the head of the Monologion strives to achieve
the benefits that Lanfranc’s official authorization would have had without ex-
plicitly committing Lanfranc to the treatise.
Here is the letter:
To his venerable and much loved lord and father and teacher, Lanfranc,
archbishop of Canterbury, primate of the English, much cherished by our
mother the Catholic Church because of his faith and his usefulness—
brother Anselm of Bec, a sinner by life, a monk by habit.
36 See also Holopainen, ‘The Proslogion’, 600; Sweeney, Anselm of Canterbury, 61.
37 Ep. 77, S III, 200.33–36.
38 Cowdrey, Lanfranc, 207, 211.
39 See Cowdrey, Lanfranc, 211; Holopainen, ‘The Proslogion’, 600; Sweeney, Anselm of
Canterbury, 61.
Since all things are to be done with advice, but not every advice, as it
is written: ‘do all things with advice’ [cf. Sirach 32:24, Vulgate], and ‘let
your advisers be one in a thousand’ [Sirach 6:6], I have chosen one whom
you know, not from a thousand, but from among all mortals, to have be-
fore everyone else as my counsellor in what is doubtful, my teacher in
what is unknown to me, my amender in what is faulty, my approver in
what is done right. Even though I am not able to use him to the extent I
would desire, I am nevertheless determined to use him to the extent that
I can. For even though there are very many besides your prudence from
whose experience I could derive advantage, inexperienced as I am, and
under whose judgement my immaturity compels me to put myself, yet
I do not know anyone under whose teaching and ruling I would put my-
self with similar trust and gladness than to yours and who would show
me so much fatherly compassion, if the matter needed it, or rejoice with
me, if the matter demanded. Therefore, since whatever is bestowed on
me from your fatherly breast is chosen by wisdom, confirmed by author-
ity, and seasoned by love, when I drink something from that source, it
both delights me with its pleasantness and satisfies me with its safety. But
because I am speaking to one who knows these very things, I leave them
aside and disclose why I have mentioned of them.
Certain brethren who are your servants and my fellow servants have
compelled me with their many and frequent requests to agree to write
for them something, in the way you can learn from the preface to the
writing in question. With this work it happened against expectations that
not only those at whose insistence it had been produced but also many
others wanted not only to read it but also make a copy. Hesitating, then,
whether I ought to deny or allow what they want, lest they either deem
me inimical and hate me or realize I am a fool and laugh at me, I therefore
have recourse to my unique adviser and send that writing to be examined,
so that by the authority of your judgement either what is unsuitable be
held back from sight or be corrected and offered to those who want it.40
Given the epistolary exchange between Anselm and Lanfranc about the
Monologion, the content of this letter may appear odd, since Anselm has al-
ready proved immune to the criticism that Lanfranc could offer. It is impor-
tant to note that the letter of dedication is not really a letter from Anselm to
Lanfranc. Instead, it is a rhetorical piece with the aid of which Anselm aims
at creating some impressions in the audience, with Lanfranc’s permission. To
40 Monologion, Letter to Archbishop Lanfranc, S I, 5–6.

158 Chapter 7
begin with, Anselm wants to offer the image that he is not a troublemaker but
a reasonable person who is aware of his limitations and will readily accept
criticism. Further, he removes as far as possible the idea that he has any prob-
lem in relation to Lanfranc or Lanfranc’s views: he offers an exalted picture of
Lanfranc, makes it clear that he has a special relation to the archbishop, and
would willingly submit any of his doings to Lanfranc’s judgement and evalua-
tion. As for the treatise itself, Anselm creates the impression that he has com-
posed it at the request of others and has no desire to circulate it; however, it has
turned out that others want to make copies of the treatise and hence he sub-
mits it to Lanfranc for judgement. Even though there is nothing in the letter of
dedication to indicate that Lanfranc has actually approved Anselm’s treatise,
the readers would normally assume that it has Lanfranc’s approval (given that
there is no evidence to the contrary). And even if some readers were to have
doubts about that, they would certainly get the impression that it is Lanfranc
who should evaluate the treatise. This impression serves to deter public criti-
cism of the treatise from anyone within the Norman realm. A person who criti-
cizes the Monologion not only censures an intimate friend of the archbishop,
he also runs the risk of treading on the toes of the archbishop himself.
When Anselm had sent the manuscript of the Monologion to Lanfranc for
inspection, it did not yet have a title. The first published version of the treatise
had the title Exemplum meditandi de ratione fidei. There are two noteworthy
things in this title. First, the title suggests that Anselm’s treatise actually belongs
to the genre of meditation. The beginning of the preface to the Monologion en-
dorses the same idea.41 This suggestion is problematic. The Monologion is quite
unlike the other meditations that Anselm composed and it has customarily
not been included in the collections of Anselm’s Prayers and Meditations. The
suggestion that the Monologion should be seen as a meditation strives to point
to a legitimate place for Anselm’s treatise in the monastic context. Second,
the expression ratio fidei is noteworthy. It does not appear in the text of the
Monologion; it was invented for the title. The relation of faith (fides) and reason
(ratio) was a controversial issue, and from De corpore one may easily gain the
impression that faith and reason are opposites. The expression ratio fidei sug-
gests that this need not be the case. There is ‘the reason of faith’ (that is what
ratio fidei literally means) or ‘the reason in faith’, an internal logic or intelligible
41 Monologion, preface, S I, 7.1–7. Previously, in Ep. 77, S III, 199.18, Anselm referred to it as a
disputatio, not a meditatio. If the characterization of the work as a meditation emerged af-
terwards, the passages in which the word ‘meditation’ is used, Monologion 6, S I, 19.12–20
and Monologion 8, S I, 23.3–4, should be seen as additions. It is noteworthy that both the
passages also refer to the usefulness of replying to possible objections.
structure in the content of faith (or in the object of faith), and this reason in
faith is open to treatment by reason. The introduction of the expression ratio
fidei is, in itself, a contribution to a discussion about faith and reason.
The preface to the Monologion also includes a number of claims and im-
plications which aim at influencing the way in which the treatise and its au-
thor are seen. The idea that the treatise belongs to the genre of meditation
is forcefully presented in the first paragraph of the preface. Anselm explains
that ‘certain brethren’ had asked him to compose a text which could serve as a
model meditation (exemplum meditationis). A little later Anselm refers to the
commendable probity of their intent; meditating on God is certainly an ap-
propriate thing for a monk to do.42 However, the brothers not only asked that
Anselm write a meditation. They also presented detailed instructions about
the methodology to be used in it. The brothers wanted Anselm not to appeal to
the authoritative writings at all but instead to base his conclusions on strictly
rational arguments. They demanded that he make use of an austere unembel-
lished style. They wanted him to deal with any possible objections to his argu-
ments that occur to him. In the end, they also prescribed that Anselm should
adopt the viewpoint of a person who does not yet know the things that will be
established in the treatise.43 Overall, Anselm makes ‘certain brethren’ respon-
sible for the methodology used in the treatise. Anselm admits, though, that he
had orally presented considerations of a related kind to the same brothers be-
fore they had made their request. Nevertheless, Anselm’s remarks produce the
impression that he has only tried to accomplish what other people have asked
him to do. Consequently, the audience should not blame Anselm if it does not
like the method in the Monologion. Interestingly, Anselm is vague about the
scope of the ‘meditation’ that he was asked to compose. The remarks about the
requests of the brothers are part of Anselm’s attempt to protect himself from
potential criticism. One should not infer on the basis of these remarks that
Anselm does not genuinely stand behind the treatise; his reaction to Lanfranc’s
initial criticism shows that he was quite serious about it.
The idea that Anselm composed the Monologion at the request of some
brothers was already mentioned in the letter of dedication. Both the letter of
dedication and the preface also include another role for some of Anselm’s fel-
low monks. Anselm claims in both of these texts that not only the brothers
who had requested the composition of the treatise but also others wanted to
read the treatise and make copies of it. Anselm lets us understand that he him-
self had had no intention whatsoever of circulating the text; on the contrary,
42 Monologion, preface, S I, 7.1–4 and 7.16–17.

43 Monologion, preface, S I, 7.4–12 and 8.18–20.
160 Chapter 7
he is mainly embarrassed by not being able to produce anything better.44 The

brothers are, hence, responsible not only for the method in the treatise but
also for its being published. Consequently, the audience should not blame
Anselm if it sees something inappropriate in the publication of a text like the
Monologion. Here again, Anselm protects himself from potential criticism. At
the same time, the reaction of the brothers (basically, the reaction of Anselm’s
own associates) offers a precedent to how the reader of the Monologion ought
to react. Anselm’s treatise has already been approvingly received by a number
of devout people and any new reader is expected to follow suit. Anselm’s report
about how his treatise has already been received aims at influencing the way
his treatise will be received.
Anselm’s method in the Monologion was to base his presentation on ratio-
nal arguments and not to appeal to the authoritative writings. The description
of this method in the early part of the preface does not yet indicate how the
content of the presentation is related to what the authoritative writings say.
Anselm comments on this issue towards the end of the preface. He assures us
that he has diligently inspected the treatise from this point of view and has not
found anything that would not be coherent with the writings of the Church fa-
thers, in particular those of Augustine. If it seems to someone that Anselm has
said something novel or something contrary to the Catholic truth, then that
someone should check the matter against Augustine’s On the Trinity before he
utters the criticism. Anselm has the same work in mind when he refers to the
Greek usage to defend his suggestion that the three Trinitarian persons can be
called ‘three substances’.45
Proposing that the reader should check Anselm’s claims against On the
Trinity is a clever rhetorical piece of advice. On the one hand, Anselm’s ad-
vice constitutes a formidable challenge to the general reader. Augustine’s De
trinitate is a massive work and it contains highly complicated discussions of
difficult topics. Within Anselm’s first audience, few persons would already
be familiar with De trinitate as a whole. Hopefully, the general reader would
understand that he does not have the competence to evaluate Anselm’s trea-
tise. On the other hand, those who were familiar with Augustine’s work would
not be likely to criticize his treatise. Even if they should happen to disagree
with Anselm, they would nevertheless be able to appreciate what he is doing.
Besides, many of the features that an audience influenced by De corpore would
find offensive in the Monologion are also present in De trinitate. In particular,
Augustine also makes heavy use of the art of dialectic. Many of the arguments
44 Monologion, Letter to Archbishop Lanfranc, S I, 6.7–9, and preface, S I, 8.1–7.

and conclusions in the Monologion have been inspired by various passages in

Augustine’s De trinitate, but there are also claims that are original with Anselm
himself.46
In the last paragraph of the preface, Anselm presents the request that any-
one who copies the book should also copy the preface and place it before the
list of chapters. To back up this request, Anselm maintains that familiarity with
the purpose and mode of presentation helps in understanding the content of
the treatise. Anselm also states it as his view that a person who has seen the
preface will not make too hasty a judgement when he comes across a state-
ment that is contrary to his own opinion (contra suam opinionem).47 Anselm
certainly meant the request seriously: he saw it important that the preface is
copied. However, the remark is not directed only to the copyist but also to the
reader. The reference to the reader’s own opinion is important because it im-
plies a view of the doctrine that is quite different from the view in De corpore.
The rhetorical attack on Berengar of Tours in De corpore rests on an idealized
picture of the unitary teaching of the unitary Church. A similar idea can be
glimpsed in the remark about ‘believing’ and ‘hearing’ in the first chapter of
the Monologion.48 The preface to the Monologion entails a different idea. The
readers should not take it for granted that they know what the truth is but in-
stead see their accustomed views as ‘opinions’. In fact, Anselm’s advice about
what the readers should do when they think they have found something novel
or false in the Monologion already rests on a similar understanding. These re-
marks in the preface aim at ensuring that the readers will preserve their benign
attitude towards the treatise even when they come across claims that are unfa-
miliar to them or even contrary to what they have thus far held true.
7.5 Call for a Proslogion
In the immediate background of the Proslogion, there are two treatises endors-
ing radically different views on faith and reason. The Eucharistic treatise De
corpore et sanguine Domini attributed to Lanfranc puts an emphasis on author-
ity and simple believing and endorses a very reserved attitude towards reason
and logical arguments. Anselm’s first major work, the Monologion, is based on a
very optimistic view of reason and logic and the usefulness of their application
46 For Anselm’s indebtedness to Augustine, see also F. B. A. Asiedu, From Augustine to

Anselm: The Influence of De trinitate on the Monologion (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012).
162 Chapter 7
in matters of faith. The boldness of Anselm’s rational approach would cause

restlessness among Christians of a conservative bent in almost any context,
but publishing the Monologion was particularly unsafe in the environment in
which Anselm was actually working. Several features of the Monologion might
suggest to an uncharitable reader that Anselm and Berengar, as he is portrayed
in De corpore, are kindred spirits.
Anselm took a number of precautions. He restricted the circulation of the
Monologion. He managed to secure Lanfranc’s qualified support for the trea-
tise, and he prefixed to it the letter of dedication and the preface which in dif-
ferent ways serve to protect him from potential criticism. However, there was
need for something more. Something had to be done about the attitudes on
faith and reason that De corpore endorsed. Telling the truth about De corpore
was not an option. To change the general attitudes, Anselm should be able to
offer an appealing alternative to the model of De corpore. In principle the alter-
native was already there in the Monologion, but this treatise was too academic
and there were offending features in it. To speak to the audience of De corpore
and to counteract the effects of this treatise, Anselm should be able to intro-
duce his rational method in a more attractive context and a more attractive
format. Anselm started to work on a new text to achieve this—the text that
would one day become the Proslogion. It is difficult to say when Anselm started
working on it, but it is possible that he discussed the project with Lanfranc in
the autumn of 1077.
With hindsight, it is possible to formulate a number of requirements that the
new text should meet. The Monologion demanded advanced knowledge of the
art of logic or dialectic from the reader. The new text should be accessible even
to those who have not studied logic and are suspicious about its application.
In the Monologion, Anselm had not eschewed presenting claims that were un-
familiar to the audience. The new text should avoid making claims that might
be considered doctrinally suspect. The Monologion is a lengthy treatise and the
reconstruction of the Christian view in it is produced in a complex concatena-
tion of many different arguments. The new text should be much shorter and it
should be based on fewer arguments. The argumentation in the Monologion is
presented from the viewpoint of a person who does not yet know the Christian
truth, and some readers might find this awkward. The new text should be com-
posed from a pronouncedly Christian perspective. The unembellished and arid
mode of presentation in the Monologion speaks mainly to the intellect of the
reader. The new text should speak more to the heart, and it should be rhetori-
cally at least as persuasive as De corpore had been. The Monologion had done
little or nothing to motivate the quest for rational arguments for the Christian
view. The new text should provide a justification for that quest, and preferably
it should be a pious one. The Proslogion corresponds to these requirements.
Part 1 of this study focused on the single argument in the Proslogion. It
ended with what I called the puzzle of the Proslogion. If Anselm composed
the Proslogion to introduce the single argument that he had discovered and
if that argument was meant to be strictly rational, why is it the case that he
introduced the argument in an opaque way by using it in a devotional exer-
cise? At the end of Part 1, it was already anticipated what the reason might be:
the introduction of the single argument was not Anselm’s ultimate aim but
served some more important end. The discussion of the background of the
Proslogion in this Part 2 suggests what the more important end might be. After
the Monologion, there was a call for a text like the Proslogion because Anselm
needed to present a pious and rhetorically persuasive justification for the ra-
tional method that he had introduced in his first treatise. Part 3 seeks to elu-
cidate how the use of a strictly rational argument in a devotional exercise can
serve this purpose.
Part 3
The Exercise in the Proslogion
∵
Chapter 8
The Devotional Exercise
8.1 Argument, Devotion, and Rhetoric
In several German manuscripts of De corpore et sanguine Domini, there is a ru-

bric stating that Lanfranc composed the treatise ‘by the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit and at the request of his pupil Theodoric, canon of Paderborn’.1 It is not
clear how much weight this rubric should be given as historical evidence, but
in any case there are reasons for being sceptical about both parts of this sugges-
tion about the derivation of De corpore. It may be that Theodoric was a pupil of
Lanfranc and presented a request to him, but such a request can have had only
marginal influence in Lanfranc’s decision to engage in the kind of rhetorical
undertaking that De corpore is. Then again the deceitful manner in which the
author of the treatise uses rhetorical devices makes it uncomfortable to stress
the inspired character of the treatise. In the case of Anselm’s Proslogion, talk
about divine inspiration is more in line with how the Holy Spirit is traditionally
assumed to operate. The Proslogion is a devotional exercise written in prayer
form. In the preface Anselm says that he wrote this small work ‘in the role of
someone endeavouring to elevate his mind to the contemplation of God and
seeking to understand what he believes’.2 What Anselm says and does in the
Proslogion is coherent with what he says and does in his other writings, and
there appears to be no particular grounds for charging him with being dishon-
est in this work, strictly speaking.3 However, whether or not the possibility of
special supernatural causation is taken into account, it is legitimate to analyse
both De corpore and the Proslogion from a secular point of view, as pieces of
human communication, and that is the method in this study.
1 See Serta mediaevalia, ed. R. B. C. Huygens, Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis

171 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), 232–33. See also Jean de Montclos, Lanfranc et Bérenger: la
controverse eucharistique du XIe siècle (Leuven: Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense, 1971), 195–
96; Margaret Gibson, Lanfranc of Bec (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 103; H. E. J. Cowdrey,
Lanfranc: Scholar, Monk, and Archbishop (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 22 and 64.
3 After being ‘tamed’ (cf. 5.3), it may be that Anselm followed Jesus’ advice that his followers
should be ‘wise as serpents and innocent as doves’ (Matt. 10:16). Cf. Sally N. Vaughn, Anselm of
Bec and Robert of Meulan: The Innocence of the Dove and the Wisdom of the Serpent (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1987).

168 Chapter 8
The earlier parts of the study have been focused on two issues that are
important for understanding the Proslogion. Part 1 sought to illustrate one
notable feature in the treatise, namely, the single argument that Anselm an-
nounces in the preface, and Part 2 aimed at clarifying the historical context
in which Anselm composed and published the work. A number of comments
about the nature and purpose of the work have already been presented in dif-
ferent contexts, but a more extended discussion of these issues is still needed.
The last part of the study, Part 3, seeks to provide a general understanding
of the nature of the Proslogion and Anselm’s intent in composing and publish-
ing the treatise. Analysing the devotional exercise in the work will be a central
constituent in the effort. It is important to note, however, that the devotional
exercise proper is part of a more complex exercise also involving the material
that Anselm added later, like the preface and the Responsio, and that no precise
line can be drawn between the exercise proper and the more complex under-
taking related to it.
The current secondary literature does not give much help in an attempt to
understand the Proslogion as an exercise: the more complex undertaking in the
work is beyond the horizon of most scholars, and the remarks about the devo-
tional exercise are typically shallow or biased. The conventional approach to
the work concentrates exclusively or almost exclusively on Anselm’s argumen-
tation about God. The scholars representing this approach are mainly inter-
ested in Proslogion 2–4 as well as the exchange between Anselm and Gaunilo.
It may be acknowledged that the Proslogion is a prayer, but this is judged to
be a secondary feature of the text which does not affect the interpretation of
the arguments and need not be taken into account in academic discussion,
even though it may be personally important to some scholars. On the other
hand, there is a family of approaches in which the devotional nature of the
Proslogion has been seen as essential for the interpretation of its arguments.
The fideistic and mystical interpretations of the Proslogion by Karl Barth and
Anselm Stolz, respectively, are classical examples of such approaches, and vari-
ous interpretations along these lines have been presented in recent decades.4
4 Karl Barth, Anselm: Fides Quaerens Intellectum, trans. Ian W. Robertson (London: SCM Press,
1960) (German original 1st ed. 1931, 2nd ed. 1958); Anselm Stolz, ‘Anselm’s Theology in the
Proslogion’, trans. Arthur C. McGill, in John Hick and Arthur C. McGill (eds.), The Many-Faced
Argument: Recent Studies on the Ontological Argument for the Existence of God (New York:
Macmillan, 1967), 183–206 (German original ‘Zur Theologie Anselms in Proslogion’, Catholica,
2 (1933), 1–24). Barth’s contribution is well known in its own right, whereas Stolz owes his
reputation to McGill’s article ‘Recent Discussions of Anselm’s Argument’, The Many-Faced
Argument, 33–110, where Stolz appears as the main proponent of the mystical interpretation
of Anselm (64–69). Among recent major studies with strong mystical emphases are Gregory
The Devotional Exercise 169
However, even though many scholars are firmly convinced that the devotional
framework must affect the interpretation of the arguments in the Proslogion, it
is difficult to perceive any emerging consensus about how it does this, and the
remarks on the topic usually remain vague.5
The analysis of the single argument presented in Part 1 makes it clear that
the conventional reading of the Proslogion is right in emphasizing the rational
character of some of the arguments in the work. Even though Anselm intro-
duces the single argument by using it in a devotional exercise, he considers it
to be a rational argument in the same way as the arguments in the Monologion
are meant to be rational. The significance of the devotional framework is not
that it would somehow qualify the central arguments in the Proslogion or lift
them to a new plane, as it were. The single argument stands or falls quite in-
dependently of the devotional framework. The conventional approach is basi-
cally correct regarding this point, and the fideistic and mystical approaches,
as characterized above, are correspondingly mistaken. At the same time, the
conventional approach is plainly deficient as well because it does not even
attempt to offer any substantial account of the exercise in the Proslogion. A
proper analysis of the Proslogion requires that an account is given of how the
combination of argumentation and devotion serves to bring about effects of a
particular kind in the audience.
The elucidation of the historical context in Part 2 has a twofold significance
for understanding the exercise in the Proslogion. First, the discussions pre-
sented in Part 2 establish that there was need for a subtle attempt to influence
the audience’s views about faith and reason at the time when the Proslogion
was published. Lanfranc’s De corpore was an influential treatise, and one of its
objectives was to mould the attitudes that the monastic and clerical audience
in Normandy would have towards the use of reason within theology. Anselm’s
Monologion is based on a methodological stance that is in sharp contrast with
the attitudes that De corpore had endorsed, and the topic was hot because
methodological issues were intimately tied to questions of orthodoxy and
Schufreider, Confessions of a Rational Mystic: Anselm’s Early Writings (West Lafayette, IN:
Purdue University Press, 1994) and Eileen C. Sweeney, Anselm of Canterbury and the Desire
for the Word (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2012). See also Robert
McMahon, Understanding the Medieval Mystical Ascent: Augustine, Anselm, Boethius, and
Dante (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2006).
5 Nevertheless, there are some studies that give a largely correct general idea of how the vari-
ous facets of Anselm’s contribution are related to each other. See, for example, G. R. Evans,
Anselm (London: Geoffrey Chapman, and Wilton, CT: Morehouse-Barlow, 1989); Marilyn
McCord Adams, ‘Anselm on Faith and Reason’, in Brian Davies and Brian Leftow (eds.), The
Cambridge Companion to Anselm (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 32–60.
170 Chapter 8
heresy. Combining argumentation and devotion can offer means for treating
methodological issues in a discreet way. It was suggested (see 7.1 and 7.5) that
Anselm’s aim in the Proslogion is to defend and support the kind of rational
method that he had used in the Monologion. The discussion in this Part 3 seeks
to explain how the introduction of a rational argument within a devotional
exercise can serve such purposes.
Second, the discussions in Part 2 provide contextual information of anoth-
er kind that is vital for the interpretation of the Proslogion. In the immediate
background of the work we meet a culture in which learned writers make con-
scious use of rhetorical devices to influence the audience’s views about differ-
ent kinds of things. Anselm’s Monologion is a bold attempt at reconstructing
a major fragment of the Christian view of reality on the basis of reason alone,
and Anselm was rightly worried about the reception that the treatise would
get. When he first published the work, he made well-thought-out use of rhe-
torical devices to make the audience benign and to preclude different kinds of
criticism. The title of the work, the preface, and the letter of dedication jointly
serve these purposes, and they testify of a high awareness of how it is possible
to shape the way in which the audience will look at things (7.4). De corpore,
a carefully crafted rhetorical attack against Berengar of Tours, offers a more
extreme example of the same awareness (see Chapter 6). I made a case for the
view that Lanfranc did not compose De corpore alone and that Anselm was
heavily involved in its composition (5.3). However, even if Lanfranc were the
sole author of De corpore, the treatise is part of the immediate background of
the Proslogion and testifies to the level of rhetorical expertise in Anselm’s close
surroundings.
Familiarity with De corpore is of great help in an attempt to arrive at an ad-
equate understanding of the Proslogion. De corpore and the Proslogion have in
common that they are rhetorical works that are based on a high level of crafts-
manship on the part of the author. De corpore includes a complicated rhetor-
ical manoeuvre to mislead an audience that consists of two different parts.
To mislead the monastic and clerical public, Lanfranc systematically builds
up a set of false impressions that suit his purposes. Lanfranc also strives to
lead astray Berengar of Tours, the formal recipient of the treatise, but for him
Lanfranc builds up a different set of impressions. It appears that the theory of
the Eucharist in De corpore was primarily meant for Berengar. Lanfranc does
not explicate what his theory is; whether the readers will become aware of
Lanfranc’s model and its implications depends on their diligence and analyti-
cal skill. De corpore also offers examples of how existing pieces of text (extracts
from Berengar’s Scriptum, patristic citations, the text of the 1059 synod) can
be made to have new meanings when commentary is added. The Proslogion
also includes a complicated rhetorical manoeuvre. There are ideas in the trea-
tise that Anselm leaves to the reader to figure out.6 Anselm does not say what
his single argument is but leaves it to the diligent reader to discover it. The
Proslogion includes a view about theological inquiry and the role of rational
analysis in it, but Anselm does not present an extended statement of his view.
Further, the Proslogion takes into account several kinds of audience. When
saying this, I am not suggesting that the audience of the treatise is divided
into believers and unbelievers. The fool is a literary character and not part of
the audience of the Proslogion (see 9.3). However, there are different kinds of
readers within the believing audience. Some readers are already sympathetic
towards the Monologion kind of approach while others are suspicious or hos-
tile. Some readers are able to figure out that which has been left unsaid while
others acquire impressions in less reflective ways. The Proslogion is meant to
produce some opportune effects in all kinds of readers. Finally, the strategy of
modifying the meaning of existing pieces of texts by adding commentary plays
a central role in the Proslogion. The devotional exercise gets new meanings
from the material that Anselm added around it, and the Monologion will look
different when it is accompanied by the Proslogion as its companion.
This and the following chapter aim at elucidating the peculiar combination
of argumentation and devotion in the Proslogion and the complex exercise
that it puts to the reader. The present chapter clarifies the devotional exercise
in the Proslogion without paying much attention to the material that Anselm
added later. An analysis of the actual exercise is offered at the end of the chap-
ter (8.5). Before that, three preliminary discussions are presented to provide
the context: what Anselm held about the possibility of seeing God and some
issues related to it (8.2), some similar topics in Augustine’s writings (8.3), and
the role of prayer in Anselm’s outlook (8.4). The following chapter discusses
the transformation that the Proslogion went through as Anselm added mate-
rial to it as well as the lessons related to the additions.
8.2 Faith, Understanding, and Vision
When Anselm says in the preface that he wrote the Proslogion ‘in the role of
someone endeavouring to elevate his mind to the contemplation of God and
seeking to understand what he believes’,7 he offers a twofold characterization
6 McMahon, Understanding, 3, correctly emphasizes that the Proslogion and other meditative
texts were meant to be read very intensively: they demand ‘deeply reflective rereading’.
172 Chapter 8
of the perspective in the treatise. I will argue that the devotional exercise in
this work contains a twofold endeavour (see 8.5). However, the relation be-
tween the twofold characterization and the twofold endeavour is not as
straightforward as one might assume, because the expression ‘contemplating
God’, or ‘contemplation of God’, is equivocal. To clarify the matter, it is useful to
begin with some remarks on the notion of understanding and the faith’s search
for understanding.
Being able to think of the meaning of a verbal expression is already one
kind of understanding. Understanding can also involve knowing the defini-
tions of words and things, and knowing the definition is related to knowing
the essence, for example, ‘man’ is a ‘rational, mortal animal’.8 Understanding
can be about knowing how different things are related to each other. Also, un-
derstanding can involve knowing that the things necessarily have to be in a
certain way. Finally, understanding is a kind of mental seeing, a seeing with
the ‘eye of the mind’.9 As bodily seeing, mental seeing also requires light, and
in the Augustinian tradition the light that makes understanding possible is of
divine origin (the doctrine of illumination). The notion of ‘reason’ (ratio) is
related to understanding in at least three ways. First, the faculty with the aid
of which one understands can be called ‘reason’. Second, when some grounds
are presented to show that the things are in a certain way, these grounds can be
called a ‘reason’. Third, ‘reason’ can refer to that which is intelligible in what is
sought to be understood, an intelligible structure or inner logic that the mind
can try to discover and unravel.
Even though Anselm in the Monologion adopts the perspective of a person
who is initially unfamiliar with the content of the Christian faith or at least is
not convinced of its truth, this treatise can be read as exemplifying the idea of
faith seeking understanding. Anselm advertises the treatise as an ‘example of
meditating on the reason in faith’. The ‘faith’ mentioned here is the Christian
faith, and the ‘reason’ which is ‘meditated’ on is the intelligible structure that
there is in the content of faith or in the object of faith. Anselm’s method in
the Monologion is to offer a reconstruction of the basic tenets in the Christian
outlook, excluding its historical aspects, on the basis of reason alone: Anselm
starts from notions that any rational person should in his view concede and
seeks to deduce some major parts of the Christian worldview from that start-
ing point. By using this method, Anselm aims at showing that these tenets of
the Christian view are not only true but are necessarily true: that they cannot
be in any other way. The Monologion aims at producing understanding in a

9 E.g., Monologion 1, S I, 13.14; Proslogion 18, S I, 114.11.
strong sense of the word. Choosing the viewpoint of an unbeliever is Anselm’s

device for promoting this kind of understanding, for it serves as a justification
for adopting a strictly rational method.
The single argument in the Proslogion offers another example of how
Anselm strived for understanding in a strong sense. This argument is also
meant as strictly rational. Its introduction aims at causing the believers famil-
iar with it to start to see ‘whatever they believe about the divine substance’ in
a new way: they should not only see that what they believe about God is true
and necessarily true, they should also start to see how everything they believe
about God hangs together. For Anselm, the single argument was a powerful in-
strument for producing understanding, a prime example of what faith seeking
understanding can be at its best. However, there are also more modest ways of
pursuing understanding, and these are valuable as well. For example, present-
ing suitable analogies can serve as a thinking aid in making sense of some dif-
ficult points in doctrine. However, striving for understanding in a strong sense
is a central feature in Anselm’s theological enterprise.
Returning now to the contemplation of God, there is a sense of ‘contem-
plating’ in which ‘endeavouring to elevate one’s mind to the contemplation of
God’ is closely related to ‘seeking to understand what one believes about God’.
As understanding is an intellectual seeing, a seeing with the eye of the mind,
there is a kind of contemplation which is an intellectual seeing or a looking at.
An activity in which the intelligible structure of things is considered with the
eye of the mind can be called ‘contemplation’. To the extent that one succeeds
in understanding what one believes, one will be able to contemplate what one
believes, and achieving this is delightful. Anselm uses the term ‘contemplation’
in this manner, for example, in the beginning of Cur Deus homo.10 Regarding
this kind of contemplation, the endeavour of the believer in the Proslogion to
elevate his mind to the contemplation of God essentially reaches its goal. The
person who takes part in the exercise should to a considerable extent be able
to see the inner logic in what he believes about God.
As mentioned, however, the expression ‘contemplation of God’ is equivo-
cal. It can also be used to refer to the direct vision of God which is promised
as a reward to the elect believers in heaven. Augustine speaks of ‘contempla-
tion of God’ in this sense in book I of On the Trinity, and Anselm in Cur Deus
10 ur Deus homo, Commendatio operis, S II, 39.2–40.1: ‘… sancti patres … tot et tanta de
C
fidei nostrae ratione dicant …, ut nec nostris temporibus nec futuris temporibus ullum
illis parem in veritatis contemplatione speramus …,’ and Cur Deus homo I, 1, S II, 47.9:
‘… sed ut eorum quae credunt intellectu et contemplatione delectentur, …’
174 Chapter 8
homo.11 There are also references to a direct vision of God in the Proslogion,
but Anselm does not use the words ‘contemplation’ or ‘contemplate’ in the rel-
evant passages. (We return to this in 8.5.) Here, we proceed to a discussion of
what Anselm held about the possibility of seeing God, using the Monologion
and Cur Deus homo as our main sources.
Towards the end of his reconstruction of the basic tenets of the Christian
outlook in the Monologion, Anselm explores what reason teaches about the re-
lationship between the Supreme Being and the creatures of a rational nature.
(See also 2.3 and 7.3.) Anselm argues that the creatures of this kind, like the
human soul, have been created in order that they love the Supreme Being. The
eternal destiny of each individual human soul depends on whether it succeeds
in fulfilling this task or not. If it does succeed, it will achieve eternal blessed-
ness, but if it does not, it will be eternally miserable. In Monologion 70, Anselm
argues that it is necessary that the Supreme Being gives a reward to those who
fulfil their task, and that the reward given is nothing less than the Supreme
Being itself.12 Because all the attributes of the Supreme Being are the same as
the Supreme Being,13 in giving itself it also gives all its attributes, including the
supreme blessedness. Anselm concludes that every soul loving the Supreme
Being ‘as it should’ will receive blessedness:
Therefore, nothing is truer than that every rational soul, if it devotes it-
self to longing for supreme blessedness as it should, shall at some time
receive that blessedness to enjoy, so that what it now sees in a mirror and
in a riddle, it shall then see face to face.14
Because of the allusion to Paul’s words about ‘now’ seeing ‘in a mirror and in
a riddle’ and ‘then’ seeing ‘face to face’ (1 Cor. 13:12), it should be rather clear to
Anselm’s Christian audience that he is here speaking of the reward that the
faithful will receive in heaven, even though no explicit distinction is made be-
tween this life and the life to come. In the Monologion, a state in which the
human soul will see the Supreme Being ‘face to face’ is the intended final goal
of human existence. Anselm brings out that the faith required for achiev-
ing the reward is a ‘living faith’ which ‘exercises itself in a great number of
works’: ‘what loves supreme justice can neither despise anything just nor allow
11 Augustine, De trinitate I, 8, 16–17. See 8.3 below. Cur Deus homo I, 16, S II, 74.20–21:
‘Rationalem naturam, quae dei contemplatione beata vel est vel futura est, …’
14 Monologion 70, S I, 80.19–81.1.
anything unjust.’15 There is a stringent ethical element in Anselm’s under-

standing of saving faith in the Monologion, but Anselm does not elaborate on
this matter.
What Anselm says in the Monologion about the purpose and end of human
existence and the way of achieving that end is, at least in the main, com-
patible with what he says about the same issues elsewhere. However, in the
Monologion Anselm chooses only to highlight some features of the relation
between humans and God, leaving aside much that, in the light of his other
writings, is crucially important as well. It was already mentioned that Anselm
does not make an explicit distinction between this life and the life to come.
Further, there is no reference to what happens to the human body. One might
easily gain the impression that the reward is given to the human soul only, but
there is no claim to that effect. The discussion in the Monologion implies that
there are creatures of rational nature other than the human soul, but angels
are not explicitly mentioned.16 The notion of sin does not appear, and there is
no reference to the Fall or to the need or possibility of atonement or to the role
of grace in salvation. The Monologion offers a truncated version of what the re-
lation between God and humans is. Anselm avoided going into questions that
he thought he could not treat in a satisfactory manner on the basis of reason
alone. Nevertheless, Anselm makes it clear that beatific enjoyment of God, see-
ing him ‘face to face’, is the end for which human beings are made.
A fuller story can be gathered from Anselm’s later writings. The key text
from this point of view is Cur Deus homo, in which Anselm discloses what the
main features of the Christian grand narrative are according to his understand-
ing. Here, I will only take up some illuminating points.
In the early chapters of book II of Cur Deus homo, Anselm presents some
arguments rather similar to those in the Monologion, but he connects them to
a complex overall story. The end for which God created human beings is that
they are blessed in enjoying God, and those attaining this goal will be whole
human beings, consisting of a body and a soul.17 In God’s primary plan, there
was no death.18 If human beings had retained the pristine righteousness with
which they were created, God would have transformed them at some later
point into incorruptibility, and they would have started enjoying blessedness.
However, mankind fell into sin and God inflicted death as a punishment for
15 Monologion 78, S I, 84.16–22.

16 The discussion in Monologion 66–68 is about ‘rational minds’ or ‘rational creatures’ gen-
erally. Then Anselm points out, Monologion 69, S I, 78.12–13, that the human soul is a
rational creature and starts to treat issues concerning the human soul specifically.
17 Cur Deus homo II, 1, S II, 97–98 and II, 3, S II, 98.
18 Cur Deus homo II, 2, S II, 98.
176 Chapter 8
sin. In the current order of things, human beings can attain blessedness only
in the life to come, and their bodies will be resurrected in order to restore them
in their original state. The bodies of those who fail to receive the intended goal
will also be resurrected, and they will suffer eternal misery.19 In Cur Deus homo,
the beatific enjoyment of God, which is the end for which human beings have
been made, is firmly situated in the life to come, and it concerns both the body
and the soul.
That some number of human beings will enjoy God without end is a con-
stituent in a bigger plan. God created the universe with a particular purpose in
view: the realization of a heavenly city in which a perfect number of rational
creatures would enjoy the presence of God. Anselm offers a lengthy discus-
sion about how the number of human beings to be included in the perfect
number will depend on the number of good angels and fallen angels. The dis-
cussion that Anselm presents is partly tentative, but he firmly believes that
such a perfect number exists and that it will include both angels and humans.
Apparently, God’s primary plan was that the population of the heavenly city
would consist of all the rational creatures that are created. He created a certain
definite number of angels, and he would let the human race proliferate until
the perfect number is reached. The fall of both angels and humans meant that
this plan could not be carried through. Of angels, some fell, while others, the
good angels, persevered in righteousness. The good angels cannot fall any lon-
ger and they will be included in the perfect number, but it is strictly impossible
that the fallen angels could be restored and saved. In humans, the fall of the
first two, Adam and Eve, caused the whole human race to fall. However, it is
not impossible for God to save some of the fallen humans. To realize the heav-
enly city, God will save some of the humans and he will keep on saving them
until the perfect number is reached, the fallen angels also being replaced by
humans.20 Anselm’s reflections about the heavenly city give robust metaphysi-
cal reality to the notion that the enjoyment of God will take place in the life
to come.
It is not impossible that some of the fallen humans can be saved, but it is
by no means easy. To begin with, it requires the incarnation of God as a man.
By sinning, human beings have shown disobedience towards God, and even
the smallest disobedience by a creature is an infinite offense against God.21 In
order for reconciliation between men and God to be possible, a compensation
for the offense is needed. It should be an infinite compensation, and it should
19 ur Deus homo II, 3, S II, 98.

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20 Cur Deus homo I, 16–19, S II, 75–86.
21 Cur Deus homo I, 21, S II, 88–89.
be offered by a representative of the human race. Anselm argues that such

compensation is possible only if the second person of the Trinity becomes in-
carnated as a God-man: by his obedience unto death the God-man can offer
satisfaction on behalf of the human race.22 The incarnation in Christ opens
the road to salvation for those who believe in Christ, but few among the human
race will be able to go that road. In the heavenly city, everyone and everything
will be perfect. Those who wish to be included in the company of good angels
must train themselves to become like them.23 The professionals of religious
life, including monks, have a fair prospect of reaching the goal. It is far more
difficult to lead a holy life ‘in the world’, even for clerics.24
In the early parts of Cur Deus homo, Anselm presents some comments about
the relation between faith, understanding, and the ultimate end of human ex-
istence. Among other things, Anselm makes Boso, his discussion partner in
the dialogue, observe that seeking understanding is a kind of religious duty for
mature believers:
Just as right order requires us to believe the deep things of Christian faith
before we undertake to discuss them rationally, so it seems to me to be
negligence if, after we are confirmed in faith, we do not strive to under-
stand what we believe.25
Part of Anselm’s reason for saying this was, obviously, that rational discussion
of the matters of Christian faith was not looked on favourably in all quarters.
Defending the legitimacy of analysing ‘the reason in faith’ (ratio fidei) is a
major objective in the dedicatory letter of Cur Deus homo to Pope Urban II as
well. Without mentioning any names, Anselm points out that the ‘holy fathers’
laboured at this task and made many valuable points. However, the fathers did
not yet say everything that could be said; human life is short, and ‘the reason in
truth’ is so deep and so extensive that it is impossible for mortals to exhaust it.
Anselm presents himself as continuing the work of the fathers in theological
investigation. As for the purpose of the activity, Anselm calls attention to two
things. On the one hand, the investigation has an apologetic aim: the points
made can be used to try to win over those who are unbelievers. On the other
hand, the investigation has a purpose that is internal to the life of Christian be-
lievers: ‘to nourish those who, having hearts already cleansed by faith, delight
22 This is the main argument of Cur Deus homo. See especially Cur Deus homo II, 6, S II, 101.
23 See Cur Deus homo I, 19–20, S II, 84–88; De concordia III, 4, S II, 268.
24 See, e.g., Ep. 101, S III, 232–34.
25 Cur Deus homo I, 1, S II, 48.16–18.
178 Chapter 8
in the reason of our faith’. Anselm refers to this activity as ‘contemplating the
truth’ (veritatis contemplatio).26 To further substantiate the legitimacy of the
investigation of faith, Anselm cites the passage ‘Unless you believe you will not
understand’ (Isaiah 7:9, Old Latin version) and comments that it ‘manifestly
instructs us to stretch our effort towards understanding, because it teaches
how we ought to advance towards it’.27 In the end, there is a short statement
about how Anselm sees the search for understanding in relation to the ulti-
mate end of human life in the Christian outlook:
Finally, since I understand the understanding that we attain in this life

to be a midway between faith and seeing, I reckon that the more anyone
advances to understanding, the closer he comes to the seeing that we all
strive after.28
Here, ‘seeing’ (species) refers to the beatifying vision of God in the life to come,
whereas faith ( fides) and understanding (intellectus) belong to this life. In the
dedicatory letter of Cur Deus homo, Anselm sees understanding as a midway
(medium) between faith and the vision of God, which is the ultimate goal of
human existence. Anselm completed Cur Deus homo in 1098, some two de-
cades after the first publication of the Proslogion, but his views about faith,
understanding, and vision remained constant. Even though Anselm does not
say in the Proslogion that understanding is a midway between faith and seeing,
the devotional exercise in the Proslogion strives to convey a similar idea (8.5).
8.3 Some Augustinian Background
Anselm’s ideas about faith, understanding, and vision of God are, if not of
Augustinian origin, at least of Augustinian inspiration. However, Augustine’s
views about the issues in question underwent changes as his theological views
matured. The learned among medieval readers of Augustine can be expected
to have been at least partly aware of these changes. In the work Retractationes
(426–427), Augustine offers a critical chronological survey of his own pro-
duction that helps in delineating the developments in his thought, and some
26 ur Deus homo, Commendatio operis, S II, 39.2–40.5.

C
27 Cur Deus homo, Commendatio operis, S II, 40.7–9.
28 Cur Deus homo, Commendatio operis, S II, 40.10–12: ‘Denique quoniam inter fidem et
speciem intellectum quem in hac vita capimus esse medium intelligo: quanto aliquis ad
illum proficit, tanto eum propinquare speciei, ad quam omnes anhelamus, existimo.’
of the relevant changes are rather conspicuous to an attentive reader even

otherwise. As background for discussing the attempt at contemplating God
in the Proslogion, it is useful to address briefly some features of the mature
Augustine’s position on the one hand and to look at some of his early works
on the other.
In Augustine’s mature understanding, the vision of God ‘as he is’ is a reward
promised to those who believe, and this reward will be attained in the life to
come. For example, in the treatise De videndo Deo (actually a letter to the noble
lady Paulina), Augustine treats the theme of vision of God in a popular fashion.
He appeals to Matt. 5:8, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God’,
and 1 John 3:2, ‘We know that when he appears, we will be like him, for we will
see him as he is’, to argue that God can be seen, even though ‘we’ have not yet
seen him.29 God will not ‘deprive the pure hearts of the contemplation of his
substance, since this great and noble reward is promised to those who worship
and love God.’30 In On the Trinity, a work with which Anselm was thoroughly
familiar, Augustine also describes the contemplation of God in heaven as a
reward promised to those purified by faith. For example, he finds this idea in
Paul’s phrase ‘when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father’ (1 Cor. 15:24).
Augustine’s exposition of the phrase consists of a thread of biblical quotations
interpreted spiritually:
… these words, ‘When he hands over the kingdom to God the Father’
[1 Cor. 15:24], are said as if it were said, ‘When he brings believers to the
contemplation of God, the Father’. … Before that take places, ‘we see now
in a mirror and in a riddle’, that is, in likenesses, ‘but then face to face’
[1 Cor. 13:12]. For this contemplation is held out to us as the end of all ac-
tions and the everlasting fullness of joy. For ‘we are God’s children, and
what we will be does not yet appear; but we know that when he appears,
we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.’ [1 John 3:2] … we will ar-
rive at his contemplation, but that contemplation is not yet, so long as
our joy is in hope. … For contemplation is the reward of faith, and our
hearts are purified by faith for that reward, as it is written, ‘Purifying their
hearts by faith’ [Acts 15:9]. And that our hearts are to be purified for this
contemplation is proved above all by this passage, ‘Blessed are the pure
in heart, for they will see God’ [Matt. 5:8]. And that this is life eternal,
29 Augustine, De videndo Deo (= Ep. 147) 5, 12.

30 Augustine, De videndo Deo 20, 48.
180 Chapter 8
God says in the Psalm, ‘With long life I will satisfy him, and show him my
salvation’ [Psalm 91:16].31
In the mature Augustine’s understanding, it is only in the life to come that the
faithful should expect to be able to see God ‘as he is’.
During the early phases of his career, Augustine had different ideas. Soon
after his conversion to Christianity, he composed a number of dialogues that
are philosophical in nature. One of these is Soliloquies, a dialogue between
‘Augustine’ and ‘Reason’, in which he enquires about the possibility and way
of knowing God from the viewpoint of what an endowed individual can hope
to achieve through ethical and intellectual training. Augustine presents one of
his earliest statements of the theory of illumination in this work, but the focus
of the discussion is not on epistemology in general but on suggesting a way in
which the human mind can come to know God. Augustine presents an anal-
ogy between seeing by means of bodily eyes and intellectual seeing by means
of the eye of the mind. In both cases, a source of light that illumines the object
to be seen is needed. As the sun illumines the objects seen by bodily eyes, God
illumines the things seen by the eye of the mind.32 In Soliloquies, Augustine
maintains that the mind will see God if it is capable of gazing at the ‘Sun’ that
illumines the truths of reason, and he is confident that the eye of the purified
mind will eventually be able to do it already in this life.33 A remarkable feature
of Augustine’s discussion about the possibility of knowing or seeing God in
Soliloquies is that he is almost exclusively concerned about the possibility of
knowing God in this life. There are remarks about the possibility of knowing
God in the life to come, but some of them are rather surprising: Augustine
aims at attaining God in this life, for we cannot know what awaits us in the
afterlife.34 At this stage of his intellectual career, Augustine did not see the
knowledge of God that can be achieved in this life as a pale image of the vi-
sion that will await the chosen in the life after. The soul can be happy in the
knowledge of God already in this life—a remark that he would later refute in
his Retractationes.35
31 Augustine, De trinitate I, 8, 16–17. In the preface to the Monologion, S I, 8.8–13, Anselm

refers to On the Trinity in a manner that implies a thorough knowledge of this work on his
part.
32 Augustine, Soliloquia I, 6, 12 and I, 8, 15. Augustine composed Soliloquies at Cassiciacum
in winter 387–388 between his conversion and his baptism.
33 Augustine, Soliloquia I, 6, 13.
34 Augustine, Soliloquia I, 12, 20.
35 Augustine, Soliloquia I, 7, 14. Augustine, Retractationes I, 4, 3.
By the time he composed the most important of his early dialogues, De li-
bero arbitrio,36 Augustine had already changed his view in important respects.
This dialogue offers an important point of comparison for the Proslogion, as
there are a number of clear parallelisms between its book II and Anselm’s
work. Augustine provides an argument for God’s existence, and in connection
with it God is characterized as ‘that which has nothing superior to it’.37 He re-
fers to the fool of the psalms and apparently assumes that his argument for
God’s existence could be used for convincing the fool.38 Augustine also under-
stands the relation between faith and understanding very much in the same
way as Anselm later does:
For unless believing and understanding were different and unless those
important and admirable things that we yearn to understand were first
to be believed, the prophet would say without cause, ‘Unless you believe
you will not understand.’ … Let us, therefore, earnestly continue our
search, obeying the Lord’s orders. For what we seek at his exhortation, we
will find as he himself shows it to us, so far as these things can be found
in this life and by persons like ourselves.39
Both Anselm and Augustine see presenting rational arguments as a means of

striving for understanding. Anselm’s use of the Old Latin version of Isaiah 7:9
as a proof text obviously derives from Augustine’s similar use in this and other
passages. Regarding the possibility of knowing God, Augustine has moved
close to his mature view in that it is rather to be expected in the life to come
than in this life.40 Importantly, however, there is also a formulation in De libero
arbitrio which is reminiscent of his view in Soliloquies:
But in those who choose in the light of the sun what they like to behold
and rejoice in beholding it, if there are perchance some with brisk and
healthy and powerful eyes, they like nothing better than looking upon
the sun itself which also illumines the other things in which the weaker
eyes find their pleasure. In the same way, when the strong and brisk gaze
of the mind has perceived a number of immutable truths by sure reason,
36 Augustine wrote the early part of the work in Rome in 387–388 and completed it in Hippo
between 391 and 395.
37 Augustine, De libero arbitrio II, 6, 14: ‘quo est nullus superior’, ‘quo nihil superius esse
constiterit’.
38 Augustine, De libero arbitrio II, 2, 5. See also 9.3.
39 Augustine, De libero arbitrio II, 2, 6.
40 See Augustine, De libero arbitrio II, 2, 6.
182 Chapter 8
let it aim towards the truth itself that makes all things known, and cling-
ing to the truth it will, as if forgetful of all else, enjoy all things at once in
the truth.41
Augustine seems to be saying that those with strong intellects should be able
to look at the source of all truth and enjoy it, as those with strong eyes should
be able to look at the sun.
Even though Anselm’s view about faith, understanding, and vision has a close
resemblance to Augustine’s mature view, being familiar with Augustine’s early
ideas is also helpful for understanding the Proslogion. To begin with, Anselm
most likely understood and meant that De libero arbitrio and Soliloquies would
serve as points of reference for the Proslogion.42 There are so many parallel-
isms between the Proslogion and book II of De libero arbitrio that the latter
must have suggested itself as a point of comparison to many readers of the
Proslogion. On the other hand, there are some manifest parallelisms between
the Proslogion and Soliloquies as well. The theme of contemplating God is
prominent in both works, and they both begin with a long prayer in which
seeking God plays an important role.43 The titles of the works—Soliloquia
and Proslogion and Monologion—sound rather similar and have in com-
mon that they are all words coined by the authors for this purpose.44 What
is more, Anselm explains that monologion can be Latinized as soliloquium, ‘a
soliloquy’. One of the reasons why Anselm introduced the titles Monologion
and Proslogion was, arguably, that he wanted to make reference to Augustine’s
Soliloquies.
Taking Soliloquies and De libero arbitrio as points of reference will pro-
vide interesting perspectives for some aspects of Anselm’s endeavour in the
Proslogion. Anselm stands out as a thinker with high confidence in what rea-
son can accomplish, but there are, in his judgement, also important limitations
to what reason can do. While Augustine in his Soliloquies was positive that a
beatifying vision of God can be achieved through intellectual ascent in this
life, one of the main points in the devotional exercise in the Proslogion is to
41 Augustine, De libero arbitrio II, 13, 36.

42 In a twelfth-century catalogue of the library at Bec, there is mentioned a volume which
contains Augustine’s De libero arbitrio and Soliloquia: Catalogus librorum abbatiae bec-
censis circa saeculum duodecimum, Patrologia Latina 150, 769–782, at 771C. It is not pos-
sible to tell whether the volume was there already in Anselm’s time. Soliloquia II, 2, 2 is
the probable source of Anselm’s argument for the eternity of truth in Monologion 18, S I,
33.10–22.
43 Proslogion 1, S I, 97.4–100.19; Soliloquia I, 1, 5–6.
44 For the title of Augustine’s work, see Soliloquia II, 7, 14.
demonstrate that such attempts will be frustrated because the eye of the mind
cannot stand to look at God’s light. We will return to these issues in our discus-
sion of the attempt at contemplating God in the Proslogion (8.5).
8.4 On Anselm’s Prayers
It is a salient feature of the Proslogion that the actual body of it, that is,
chapters 1–26, is written in the form of a prayer. The title ‘Proslogion’ is related to
this feature: Anselm explains that the word signifies ‘an address’ (alloquium).45
The Proslogion is a proslogion because in it the person who speaks addresses
God and his own soul in front of God. The whole of the Proslogion is writ-
ten in this way. There is argumentation about God in the Proslogion, but it is
presented in the form of an address: the person who speaks argues about the
existence and properties of the divine being that he is addressing. Much of the
work is written in the second person singular. There are some passages written
in the third person, among them the inference about the existence of that than
which a greater cannot be thought in Proslogion 2–3, but these passages are
also embedded within larger passages of second person discourse.
The Proslogion is unique among Anselm’s treatises in that it has been writ-
ten in the form of a prayer, but it is not the only piece in prayer form by Anselm.
Anselm’s first published writings were prayers, and by the publication of his
first treatises he had already gained reputation as a man of prayer.46 In its final
form, his collection of Prayers or Meditations consisted of nineteen prayers and
three meditations.47 Anselm’s contribution to the development of the kind of
devotion that is typical of the later Middle Ages has been considered to be of
such importance that some scholars speak of ‘the Anselmian revolution’.48 The
majority of Anselm’s prayers address one or another of the saints. His prayers
are personal, intimate, and ardent. In many of them, the experience and emo-
tions of the person who prays, or of the saint addressed when he or she was
still on this earth, have a central role. Anselm did not write any treatise on
45 Proslogion, preface, S I, 94.13.

46 For Anselm’s prayers, see Benedicta Ward, ‘Introduction’, in The Prayers and Meditations
of St Anselm, trans. Benedicta Ward (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1973), 25–86;
Evans, Anselm, 27–36; Sweeney, Anselm of Canterbury, 13–37. For dating issues see Richard
Sharpe, ‘Anselm as Author: Publishing in the Late Eleventh Century’, The Journal of
Medieval Latin 19 (2009), 1–87, at 11–15.
47 Orationes sive meditationes, S III, 1–91.
48 R. W. Southern, Saint Anselm and His Biographer (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1963), 42–46.
184 Chapter 8
praying, but he attached to his prayers instructions about their use. There are
some elements which are present in most of Anselm’s prayers, including the
Proslogion. The first chapter of the Proslogion can be used to exemplify some
of the main ideas.49
Anselm’s prayers are intended for private as opposed to liturgical use,
and they are meant to be read in the peace of solitude. The opening lines of
Proslogion 1 are related to this idea. The reader of the Proslogion is expected
to ‘enter into the inner chamber’ of his mind,50 and this can be best achieved
when alone. Withdrawing oneself into solitude is not enough, however. The
human soul, aggravated by sin, suffers from dullness, and as a preparation for
praying it must be shaken awake. The expression ‘arousal of the mind’ (excita-
tio mentis), which appears in the heading of Proslogion 1,51 refers to this shaking
awake. To achieve this effect, Anselm in Proslogion 1 describes the deplorable
state of man in vivid language, for example:
How miserable man’s lot is when he has lost that for which he was made!
Oh how hard and cruel was that fall! Alas, what has he lost and what has
he found, what vanished and what remains? He lost the blessedness for
which he was made, and found a misery for which he was not made. …
Alas, the common grief of mankind, the universal lament of the children
of Adam! He burped with satiety; we sigh with hunger. He was wealthy;
we go begging. He happily possessed and wretchedly deserted; we un-
happily lack and miserably yearn, while, alas, remaining empty. Why did
he not keep for us, when he easily could have, that which we would so
heavily lack?52
Besides arousing the soul and making it responsive, a passage like this also
serves another end. One of the aims of Anselm’s prayers is that of producing
emotions of a certain kind. A central notion in Anselm’s teaching on praying is
that of ‘compunction’ (compunctio), a piercing of the heart, the outer expres-
sion of which is the shedding of tears.53 Two main kinds of compunction are
distinguished: the compunction of fear and sorrow, and the compunction of
love and joy. The first kind of compunction comes about when the persons
praying concentrate on their fallen and sinful state in front of God’s majesty.
49 See also Ward, ‘Introduction’, 51–56.

51 S I, 97.3: ‘Excitatio mentis ad contemplandum deum.’
52 Proslogion 1, S I, 98.16–99.1.
53 For the background of the notion of compunctio in Cassian, Benedict, Augustine, and
Gregory the Great, see Ward, ‘Introduction’, 54–55.
The second kind is related to an experience of divine mercy and the longing
for the vision of God in heaven. The passage quoted from Proslogion 1 is related
to the first kind of compunction, but much stronger passages can be found in
Anselm’s other prayers. Among the passages that aim at producing the second
kind of compunction is the description of the joy of the faithful in heaven at
the end of the Proslogion, for example:
Love the one good in which are all goods, and it will suffice. Desire the
simple good which is every good, and it will be enough. For what do you
love, my flesh, what do you desire, my soul? It is there; whatever you
love, whatever you desire is there. If beauty delights you: ‘the just will
shine like the sun’ [Matt. 13:43]. If it is speed or strength or freedom of
the body which nothing can resist: ‘they will be like the angels of God’
[Matt. 22:30], for it is ‘sown as a natural body and will rise as a spiritual
body’ [1 Cor. 15:44] … If it is a long and sound life: there is a sound eternity
and an eternal soundness, because ‘the just will live forever’ [Wis. 5:16],
and ‘the salvation of the just is from the Lord’ [Psalm 36:39].54
Note that the two passages quoted (from Proslogion 1 and Proslogion 25) are re-
lated to Anselm’s grand narrative as sketched in Cur Deus homo (see 8.2 above).
If Adam and Eve had not fallen, the fate of the human race would have been
different. The joy of the faithful in the life to come concerns both the body and
the soul.
Even though compunction and emotions have a central role in Anselm’s
teaching on prayers, this aspect must not be overemphasized. Benedicta Ward
draws attention to the ‘sober moral basis’ of Anselm’s understanding of the life
of prayer: ‘he asks for the mercy of God and for this piercing of the heart, but
along with it go the living of a good life and the following of the will of God’
(56); ‘he is not concerned that the reader should like the prayers; he means his
heart to be changed by them’ (51). Prayers also aim at producing insight: ‘It is a
matter of seeing steadily and truly the real situation of man before his Creator,
the sinner before his Redeemer and Judge’ (54).55
One of the defects in current scholarship is that the rhetorical background of
Anselm’s prayers and meditations has not been sufficiently observed. Scholars
are well aware that Anselm’s prayers are polished literary products and have
some particular stylistic features. Ward describes them as follows:
54 Proslogion 25, S I, 118.16–25.

55 Ward, ‘Introduction’, 51, 54, 56.
186 Chapter 8
The prayers are written in a rhymed prose which is mannered and elegant
to a fault; they are polished literary products, every word in its right place,
‘the whole consort dancing together’. There is antithesis, the use of paral-
lel grammatical constructions, the rhetorical question, the careful build-
up of each phrase and sentence to a climax, combined with balance
and form.56
After having presented this description, Ward lets us understand that these fea-
tures are typical of the ‘monastic school of “grammatica”’. The features rather
testify to the training in rhetoric that Anselm had received in Italy in his youth.
In addition to being concerned about eloquent style, the art of rhetoric was
and is an art of persuasive communication, of being able to bring about those
effects in the audience that one wishes to. Eileen Sweeney takes this into ac-
count and analyses how Anselm uses rhetorical devices to persuade the saints
he addresses and even to persuade God.57 It is important to note, however, that
Anselm’s prayers also have an audience that consists of human beings in this
world. Anselm wrote his prayers in order that other people would use them,
and they were designed to have effects on their users. They are best seen as
carefully crafted rhetorical texts that Anselm consciously employs as a vehicle
of Christian training. Scholars sometimes comment on Anselm’s prayers as if
they were indicative of how Anselm himself used to pray: in a prayer of his, we
have ‘a prayer exactly as a saint has prayed it, down to the intimate commu-
nications of his soul with God’.58 This need not be the case. Anselm’s prayers
indicate how he wanted the recipients of these writings to pray, but they need
not replicate his own praying.
In Cur Deus homo, the character ‘Anselm’ presents the following remark
about the function of prayer to his discussion partner, ‘Boso’:
For in this mortal life there should be such love and—to which prayer
belongs—such desire to attain that for which you were made, and such
sorrow that you are not yet there, and such fear that you might fail to
reach it, that you ought to find joy in nothing unless it helps or gives you
hope of attaining it.59
56 Ward, ‘Introduction’, 57.

57 Sweeney, Anselm of Canterbury, 13–37. Sweeney’s chapter on Anselm’s prayers has the
subtitle ‘Persuasion and the Narrative of Longing’.
58 Ward, ‘Introduction’, 49–50.
59 Cur Deus homo I, 20, S II, 87.5–8.
In this remark, prayer is related to the ‘desire to attain that for which you were
made’, that is to say, the desire to attain the end for which Boso and all humans
are made, namely, the beatifying vision of God in the life to come. In addition,
it is related to the other emotional attitudes that are mentioned after it: sor-
row of not yet being in the end state, fear of not reaching it, and only taking
pleasure in what helps in reaching it. The purpose of Anselm’s prayers, briefly,
is to help the believers keep going on the road that leads to their salvation. It is
not sufficient that believers are told under what principles the divine economy
of salvation functions, for they will not be saved for what they hold true (‘dead
faith’) but for how they live (‘living faith’).60 The main function of Anselm’s
prayers is to maintain in those who regularly consume them the kind of orien-
tation and the kind of emotions that make it possible to lead a life that pleases
God to the extent to which the life of a redeemed sinner can.
8.5 The Attempt at Contemplating God in the Proslogion
The grandest of Anselm’s prayers, the Proslogion, also helps the faithful per-
sistently keep going on the road that leads to the ultimate goal of human ex-
istence. The usual ingredients of Anselm’s prayers are present in it, but there
are also themes that are characteristic of the Proslogion. There is an endeavour
to achieve understanding of the fundamental truths about God’s essence and
existence. Because of this endeavour, there is a stronger academic aspect in the
Proslogion than in any of Anselm’s other prayers. The ultimate aim of human
existence receives a considerable amount of attention in the Proslogion.
Anselm describes the joy of the faithful in the life to come, offering an emo-
tionally appealing view of what it is that human beings should strive for. Third,
there is a theme that can be preliminarily put as a question about the relation
between the two issues mentioned: how does the intellectual endeavour to
understand what is believed about God’s existence and essence relate to the
ultimate goal of human existence and the road leading to it? Anselm does not
explicitly pose this question in the Proslogion, but this is nevertheless a central
underlying theme in it. It turns out that Anselm’s outlook in the Proslogion is
rather similar to what he later (partially) explicated in connection with Cur
Deus homo (see 8.2).61
60 Monologion 78, S I, 84–85. See 8.2.

61 The discussion that follows develops further the analyses in Toivo J. Holopainen, ‘Anselm’s
Proslogion as an Attempt at Contemplating God’, in Coloman Viola and Joseph Kormos
(eds.), Rationality from Saint Augustine to Saint Anselm (Piliscsaba: Pázmány Péter
188 Chapter 8
The twofold characterization of the perspective in the Proslogion was al-

ready preliminarily discussed earlier (in 8.2). It was pointed out that the ex-
pression ‘contemplating God’, or ‘contemplation of God’, is equivocal: it can be
used to refer to a direct vision of God, on the one hand, and to an intellectual
contemplation of truths about God, on the other. If the expression is used in
the latter sense, there is a close connection between contemplating and under-
standing. The two kinds of contemplating God have a constitutive role in the
devotional exercise in the Proslogion, and their role is particularly prominent
in chapters 1, 14–16, and 24–26. However, the term ‘contemplation’ is not used.
The noun ‘contemplation’ does not appear at all, and the verb ‘contemplate’
(contemplor) appears twice in the added material, first in the preface and then
in the heading of Proslogion 1.62 In the exercise proper, Anselm uses varied
expressions related to looking and seeing, seeking and finding, sensing, and
understanding.
Proslogion 1 has the title ‘Arousal of the mind to the contemplation of God’.63
What kind of contemplation is it that the mind is aroused for? From the early
parts of Proslogion 1, one easily gains the impression that the contemplation
that is sought is a vision of God himself. The person who prays sets out to seek
God, but he laments that he does not know how to look for him. He knows
from Paul (see 1 Tim. 6:16) that God dwells in ‘inaccessible light’, but he does
not know how to approach this light so that he may behold God in it. As a mat-
ter of fact, the vision of God is man’s end, but the person who prays has not
achieved this end: ‘I was made for seeing you; but not yet have I done that for
which I was made.’64 At this point, the reader might assume, particularly after
the addition of the chapter heading, that the aim of the exercise is the contem-
plation of God himself in the inaccessible light.
Towards the end of the chapter, however, the aim is expressed much more
moderately:
Let me look upward to your light, if only from afar, if only from the
depths. … I do not attempt, Lord, to penetrate your heights, because my
understanding is in no way equal to it. But I do desire to understand to
Catholic University, 2005), 185–95, and Toivo J. Holopainen, ‘The Proslogion in Relation to
the Proslogion’, The Heythrop Journal 50 (2009), 590–602.
62 Proslogion, preface, S I, 94.1: ‘… conantis erigere mentem suam ad contemplandum
deum …’ The heading of Proslogion 1, S I, 97.3: ‘Excitatio mentis ad contemplandum
deum.’
63 See the preceding note.
64 Proslogion 1, S I, 97.7–98.15: ‘… Denique ad te videndum factus sum, et nondum feci prop-
ter quod factus sum.’
some extent your truth, which my heart believes and loves. For I do not
seek to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to under-
stand. For I believe also this: that unless I believe, I shall not understand.65
Here, the aspiration of contemplating God combines with the aspiration of

understanding that which is believed. The person who prays yearns to be
able to contemplate God by contemplating truths about him—truths that he
now only believes but that he also wants to understand or ‘see’. The chapter
ends with the well-known lines on faith seeking understanding. Anselm fol-
lows Augustine in suggesting that believing can serve as a means for achiev-
ing understanding, the emphasis being on the desirability of understanding.
There may also be a suggestion that having faith is a requirement for achieving
understanding.
The final part of Proslogion 1 sets the tone in which the actual attempt at
contemplating God will launch in Proslogion 2:
Therefore, Lord, you who give understanding to faith, grant me that I may
understand, to the extent you know advantageous, that you exist as we
believe, and that you are what we believe.66
It is in terms of faith seeking understanding that the devout exercise will pro-
ceed in this part of the Proslogion: Anselm will contemplate God by seeking to
understand the content of faith about God. He mentions two issues regarding
which understanding is sought: that God ‘exist[s] as we believe’, and that he
is ‘what we believe’. The first expression is related to Anselm’s treatment of
God’s existence in Proslogion 2–4. The request about understanding that God
is ‘what we believe’, for its part, is related to the treatment of the properties
of the divine essence that actually begins in Proslogion 5. On the other hand,
some readers may associate the latter request with the idea that comes in the
very next sentence and forms the starting point both for the treatment of the
divine existence and for the treatment of the divine essence: ‘we believe you to
be something than which nothing greater can be thought’.67
It was argued in Part 1 of this study that ‘that than which a greater cannot
be thought’ is the single argument the discovery of which Anselm announces
in the preface. It was also argued that Anselm was convinced this argument
would make it possible to present a strictly rational proof for the existence of a
65 Proslogion 1, S I, 100.8–19.
190 Chapter 8
being that has all the properties that the Christians believe the divine essence
to have (see Chapter 3). In the present context, this information needs to be
bracketed. The first readers of the treatise did not have the preface at their dis-
posal and consequently they did not know that they should take note of a sin-
gle argument. Even after the addition of the preface and the appendices at the
end of the Proslogion, an analytical effort by the reader would be required for
any precise idea of the single argument to emerge. Nevertheless, some things
would be clear for the first audience of the Proslogion as well. The centrality of
the notion ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ can hardly escape the
attention of any reader, and Anselm also gives, in Proslogion 2 and 3, two clear
examples of how it is possible to present reductio arguments that appeal to the
signification of this notion. The dependence of the inference about God’s ex-
istence on this argumentative idea is rather conspicuous, and the reader may
also be expected to perceive that the argument in Proslogion 15 is based on the
same idea.
At the end of Proslogion 4, the person who prays bursts to thank God for the
understanding that he has achieved regarding God’s existence:
Thanks to you, good Lord, thanks to you, because what I first believed
through your giving, I now so understand by your illumination that even
if I did not want to believe it, I would not be able not to understand that
you exist.68
The understanding achieved is here presented as something God-given in so

far as it is based on divine enlightening. In the Augustinian theory of illumi-
nation, divine light is involved in every act of understanding, but it is likely
that Anselm here wishes to refer to some special illumination. It should also
be noted that what is said here qualifies what was said in the last lines of
Proslogion 1 about the relation of faith and understanding. While Proslogion 1
may suggest that having faith is a requirement for achieving understanding,
Anselm here emphasizes the independence of the understanding from any
parallel faith (see also 9.3).
In Proslogion 14, Anselm returns to the theme of Proslogion 1.69 In the first
sentences, Anselm brings together this theme and the intermediate discus-
sions in Proslogion 2–13:
68 Proslogion 4, S I, 104, 5–7.

69 The centrality of Proslogion 14 for the devotional exercise in the Proslogion has been em-
phasized by Schufreider, Confessions of a Rational Mystic, 204–30. In his analysis, howev-
er, Proslogion 3 is even more important, as this chapter includes a peculiar kind of direct
Have you found, my soul, what you were seeking? You were seeking God,
and you found him to be something which is the highest of all, than
which nothing better can be thought, and you found this to be the life
itself, light, wisdom, goodness, eternal blessedness and blessed eternity,
and to exist everywhere and always.70
The opening question reminds us of the attempt at contemplating God, taken

up in Proslogion 1. The sentence that follows offers a kind of summary of the
argumentation in Proslogion 2–13: God is the highest of all—that than which
nothing better71 can be thought (cf. Proslogion 2–5); this is the life by which
it lives, and so on (cf. Proslogion 5 and 12), and exists everywhere and always
(cf. Proslogion 13). Anselm presents this as the outcome of the endeavour of
seeking God; the soul was seeking God, and it has found a being that has the
properties mentioned.
Even though the identity of that than which a greater cannot be thought as
God is taken for granted in Proslogion 5–13, this issue is called into question in
Proslogion 14. The reason is that even though the soul has found a being that is
like God, it does not sense God:
For if you have not found your God, how is he this which you have found
and how is he what you have understood him to be with such certain
truth and true certainty? On the other hand, if you have found him, why
is it that you do not sense what you have found? Why does my soul not
sense you, Lord God, if it has found you?72
It is not quite clear how Anselm’s reasoning in this passage should be con-
strued. One of the starting points appears to be that ‘finding’ and ‘seeing’ can
be taken to mean the same; and without doubt the expressions ‘find’ (invenire)
and ‘see’ (videre) are often interchangeable when talking about intellectual
perception or intellectual insight. On the other hand, ‘seeing’ (videre) is a kind
of ‘sensing’ (sentire). Therefore, finding should result in sensing.
Anselm continues by pointing out that from the fact that the being that has
been found has been found to be light and truth it follows that the soul must
see it:
vision of God. Schufreider’s interpretation of Proslogion 3 distorts his analysis of what

takes place later in the exercise.
70 Proslogion 14, S I, 111.8–11.
71 In the context of Anselm’s single argument, ‘better’ and ‘greater’ are interchangeable.
See 2.2.
72 Proslogion 14, S I, 111.11–15.
192 Chapter 8
Has my soul not found that which it has found to be the light and the
truth? For how has it understood this except by seeing the light and the
truth? Could it have understood anything at all about you except through
your light and your truth [Psalm 43:3]? Therefore, if my soul saw the light
and the truth, it saw you. If it did not see you, it did not see the light and
the truth.73
Anselm’s argument in this passage depends on the Augustinian theory of illu-

mination. In order to understand anything of anything, the human mind needs
to be enlightened by the divine light (or divine truth), and if it is enlightened
by it, it sees something of this light. Therefore, if the soul has found that that
than which a greater cannot be thought is the light and the truth, then it nec-
essarily sees this being, for it cannot understand this but by seeing the light
(which this being is). Further, this being must be God, because the light which
illumines the soul derives from God.
In this way, the discovery of God as that than which a greater cannot be
thought with its properties should result in the seeing of God. And Anselm
thinks that the person who prays the Proslogion indeed sees God. However,
it is not the kind of vision that the person expected, say, in the early part of
Proslogion 1. Anselm draws a distinction between two senses of seeing God:
Or is it that it saw both the truth and the light, but it did not yet see you,
because it saw you to some extent but did not see you as you are?74
We can speak of ‘seeing God to some extent’ (vidit te aliquatenus), and we can
speak of ‘seeing God as he is’ (vidit te sicuti es). This distinction is important
for understanding the devotional exercise in the Proslogion, and Anselm later
underlines its importance by entitling Proslogion 14 as ‘How and why God is
both seen and not seen by those who seek him’.75 However, the distinction is
not quite explicit, and it needs interpretation. The expression ‘see you as you
are (sicuti es)’ obviously alludes to 1 John 3:2 ‘we will see him as he is (sicuti est)’,
which was understood to refer to the vision to be achieved in the life to come.
Anselm is saying that this kind of direct vision of God has not been achieved.
The other member of the distinction, ‘seeing God to some extent’, refers, first
of all, to the seeing of God’s light that has just been discussed. However, not
far in the background is the seeing of some truths about God from which the
73 Proslogion 14, S I, 111.16–20.

74 Proslogion 14, S I, 111.20–21.
75 The heading of Proslogion 14, S I, 111.7.
discussion in Proslogion 14 begins. Further, the expression ‘to some extent’

(aliquatenus) is also used in Proslogion 1, where the praying person says that
he wishes to ‘understand to some extent God’s truth’ (aliquatenus intelligere
veritatem tuam), and in this context it obviously refers to understanding some
truths about God.
The distinction ‘seeing God to some extent’—‘seeing God as he is’ neatly
corresponds to the ambiguity in Proslogion 1 regarding the kind of seeing God
that is sought. On the one hand, ‘seeing God to some extent’ (vidit te aliquate-
nus, Proslogion 14) corresponds to ‘understanding to some extent God’s truth’
(aliquatenus intelligere veritatem tuam, Proslogion 1). The kind of seeing God
that the praying person has achieved by Proslogion 14 consists of having an
intellectual insight into some truths about God. On the other hand, ‘seeing
God as he is’ (vidit te sicuti es, Proslogion 14) corresponds to ‘seeing God in the
inaccessible light’ or ‘penetrating God’s heights’ (penetrare altitudinem tuam,
Proslogion 1). These expressions refer to a kind of vision of God that remains
unachievable in the Proslogion.
In the middle of Proslogion 14, the person who prays asks to see more of
God than he has been able to see so far.76 He succeeds in seeing a little more,
for in Proslogion 14–16 he sees why he cannot attain a direct vision of God ‘as
he is’. Anselm makes use of the Augustinian theory of illumination, the valid-
ity of which he takes for granted. The fact that the soul has been able to see
some truths about the divine essence shows that the soul has been able to see
something of God’s truth or of his light, for whatever truths the rational mind
sees, it sees by means of this light. However, this light is too immense and too
resplendent for the human mind:
Is the eye of the soul darkened by its own weakness, or is it dazzled by

your brilliance? But surely it is both darkened within itself and dazzled
by you. … For how great is that light from which shines everything true
that illumines the rational mind! How wide is that truth in which is every-
thing that is true and outside of which is only nothing and what is false!
How immense is that which in one glance sees all that has been made,
and by whom and through whom and in what manner they were made
from nothing! What purity, what simplicity, what certainty and splen-
dour is there! Surely it is more than can be understood by any creature.77
76 Proslogion 14, S I, 111.22–24.

77 Proslogion 14, S I, 112.2–11.
194 Chapter 8
The soul sees that God’s truth is so immense that no creature can understand
it. Therefore, in Proslogion 15 the conclusion is drawn that God is something
greater than can be thought.78 In Proslogion 16, Anselm comments on the no-
tion that God ‘dwells in the inaccessible light’ in the context of the theory of
illumination:
Truly, Lord, this is the inaccessible light in which you dwell. For truly
there is nothing else which can penetrate it so that it might look upon
you there. Truly I do not see it, since it is too much for me, and yet what-
ever I see I see through it, as the weak eye sees what it sees by the light of
the sun, which it cannot look at in the sun itself.79
As part of its attempt to see more of God, the soul sees that God’s truth is great-
er than any creature can understand, and this truth or light is the inaccessible
light in which God dwells. Of this light it is said that anything other than God
cannot penetrate (penetrare) it so that it would see God therein. Anselm seems
to be saying that the light in which God dwells is and will be inaccessible. In
this way, the aspiration of the soul expressed in the first half of Proslogion 1 ap-
pears to be doomed to be a failure: there is no access to the inaccessible light.
This does not imply, however, that every attempt at contemplating God
as he is would remain frustrated forever. Man’s goal is the vision of God, and
the faithful will eventually achieve this end. This does not happen in this life,
but in the life to come in heaven. The last three chapters of the Proslogion,
24–26, offer some considerations about the life to come. Before that, Anselm
treats one more major theme about the properties of the divine essence: the
unity of the divine being (Proslogion 18–22). Like the first half of Proslogion 14,
the first half of Proslogion 18 elaborates further the soul’s search for God that
began in Proslogion 1.80 Anselm winds up his discussion of the divine essence
in the latter part of Proslogion 22.81 Proslogion 23 points out that the divine
being discussed is Trinitarian in nature and ends with the claim that the triune
God is ‘that one necessary thing (unum necessarium, Luke 10:42) in which is
every good’.82
Proslogion 24 offers ‘a surmise about the kind and quantity of this good’.
Proslogion 25 deliberates about ‘the kinds and quantity of goods for those who
78 Proslogion 15, S I, 112.14–17.

79 Proslogion 16, S I, 112.20–24.
80 Proslogion 18, S I, 113.18–114.13.
81 Proslogion 22, S I, 116.22–117.2. See also 2.4 and 3.2.
82 Proslogion 23, S I, 117.6–22.
enjoy this good’, and the treatment makes it clear that the goods in the life to
come concern both the body and the soul. Proslogion 26 asks ‘whether this
is the full joy that the Lord promises’.83 In these chapters, Anselm concen-
trates on the goodness of God and the joy that comes to those who enjoy it.
Anselm says very little about the vision of God as knowledge. One remark in
Proslogion 25 is related to God’s wisdom: ‘If it is wisdom [that delights you]: the
very wisdom of God will show itself to them.’84 In Proslogion 26, we have the
following passage:
But, surely, that joy in which your chosen ones will rejoice ‘neither eye has
seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man’ [1 Cor. 2:9].
Therefore, Lord, I have not yet said or thought how much your blessed
ones will rejoice. They will, no doubt, rejoice as much as they will love,
and they will love as much as they will know. How much will they know
you then, Lord, and how much will they love you? Surely ‘neither eye has
seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man’ in this life
how much they will know you and love you in that life.85
Anselm, hence, does not offer any specific description of the nature or content
of human knowledge in the state of beatific vision. Instead, he seems to be say-
ing that this is an issue which goes beyond human understanding in the pres-
ent life. It is clear, however, that there is a huge difference between the vision of
God in heaven and our understanding of some truths about God in the present
life. The last passage of the Proslogion shows that Anselm found progression in
the knowledge of God in this life to be possible, even though the fullness of this
knowledge will be achieved in the life to come.86
In conclusion, let us draw together some points. As the theme of contem-
plating God is forcefully present in the exercise in the Proslogion, it should
not be difficult for alert readers to recognize that this is one of the exercise’s
main themes, even if they did not yet have at their disposal the indications
that Anselm provided later. There is a twofold attempt at contemplating God
in the Proslogion. On the one hand, it is pointed out that the direct vision of
God is the ultimate goal of human existence. The person who prays longs for
attaining that end, but he gives up pursuing the goal because it is too elevated
for him. The same goal surfaces again later, leading to a discussion in which
83 Proslogion 24–26, S I, 117–22.

84 Proslogion 25, S I, 119.4.
85 Proslogion 26, S I, 121.6–13.
86 Proslogion 26, S I, 121.14–122.2.
196 Chapter 8
the praying person realizes why he cannot achieve the goal in the present life.
To the extent that the believers’ endeavour to elevate their minds to the con-
templation of God is an attempt to achieve a direct vision of God, this attempt
fails. The attempt is nevertheless meaningful, because the believers should
long for their ultimate end and keep it constantly before their eyes. On the
other hand, the exercise in the Proslogion includes the believers’ attempt to un-
derstand their beliefs about God. Related to this, there is a successful attempt
at contemplating God in the Proslogion.
The devotional exercise in the Proslogion includes a number of features
which serve to advertise understanding as a suitable goal for a Christian
believer in the present life. The original title of the treatise, Faith Seeking
Understanding, directs the attention of the believer to this kind of endeav-
our. The first chapter presents the search for understanding as a devout and
humble endeavour which is intimately related to man’s ultimate goal: instead
of taking the haughty objective of ‘penetrating God’s heights’, the person who
prays in the Proslogion aims lower and ‘desires to understand God’s truth to
some extent’. In this context, Anselm also refers to the Augustinian idea that
believing can serve as a means of achieving understanding. Understanding is
joyful, and it is a gift of God already for the reason that all understanding is
based on divine illumination.
Searching for understanding is a truly modest goal, as there are important
limitations on what reason can achieve in this area. If some readers are famil-
iar with those writings of Augustine in which a vision of God is sought through
intellectual ascent (see 8.3), they will notice that Anselm disagrees: the eye of
the mind cannot look at the source of the divine light, as the bodily eye cannot
bear to look at the sun (Proslogion 16). The search for understanding does not
offer any shortcut to man’s ultimate purpose.
Anselm later declared his view to be that understanding (intellectus) is a
midway point between faith ( fides) and seeing (species). He does not say it
in so many words in the Proslogion, but the devotional exercise in the trea-
tise presupposes a similar view. On the one hand, there is an intimate internal
connection between achieving understanding and the ultimate goal of human
existence. On the other hand, the understanding that can be achieved in the
present life is radically different from the vision of God that awaits the faithful
in the life to come. The devotional exercise in the Proslogion recommends faith
seeking understanding as an attitude that a Christian person should adopt.
What is more, it aims at providing a gratifying initial experience of the fruits of
this approach for those who take part in the exercise.
Chapter 9
The Exercise Continued
9.1 The Evolution of the Proslogion
The main body of the Proslogion is a devotional exercise, but there is also a
more complex exercise within the work (see also 8.1). Anselm added commen-
tary material before and after the main body of the work, and the additional
material affected the way in which the devotional exercise would be under-
stood and seen. This last chapter aims at elucidating the more complex ex-
ercise within the Proslogion. We begin by considering the way in which the
Proslogion developed into the work that we know: how the main body of the
Proslogion came about, and how the Proslogion evolved from the first published
version into its final form (9.1). The next section seeks to clarify the effects that
the changes Anselm made to the Proslogion would have had on the way the
work was understood (9.2). Because the character of the fool, the atheist of the
psalms, plays a notable part in the appendices of the Proslogion, we also reflect
upon the role of believers and unbelievers in Anselm’s work (9.3). The study
ends with a concluding discussion about the purpose of the Proslogion (9.4).
In addition to Anselm’s own account of how the Proslogion was com-
posed in the preface to the treatise (see 2.1 and 2.4), there is Eadmer’s longer
account in Vita Anselmi. Like Anselm in his story, Eadmer begins with the
Monologion and provides a brief description of its content and methodology:
Here, putting aside all authority of Holy Scripture, he enquired into and
discovered by reason alone what God is, and proved by invincible reason
that God’s nature is what the true faith holds it to be, and that it could not
be other than it is.1
Then Eadmer reports that it occurred to Anselm to look for ‘one single
argument’:
Afterwards it came into his mind to try to prove by one single and short
argument the things which are believed and preached about God, that he
is eternal, unchangeable, omnipotent, omnipresent, incomprehensible,
1 Eadmer, Vita Anselmi I, 19, ed. and trans. Southern, 29. I use Southern’s translation, unless
otherwise indicated.

198 Chapter 9
just, righteous, merciful, true, as well as truth, goodness, justice and so on;
and to show how all these qualities are united in him.2
Eadmer, of course, had Anselm’s own account as well as the remarks in the
Responsio at his disposal, but in addition he had obtained oral information,
including from Anselm himself. It is not entirely clear how well Eadmer un-
derstood Anselm’s argument. Eadmer’s starting point seems to be the account
in Responsio 10 of how the attributes of the divine substance can be derived
from the notion ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’,3 but he expands
Anselm’s few examples into an extensive list. It is noteworthy that Eadmer fails
to mention God’s existence among the things that the argument should prove,
but it is possible that he wanted to be pedagogical and deliberately simplified
matters. On the other hand, Eadmer includes the idea that the single argument
can be used for proving the unity of God’s being (Proslogion 18).4
Like Anselm, Eadmer also describes the difficult quest for the argument and
how it eventually bore fruit when ‘one night during matins the grace of God
illuminated his [Anselm’s] heart, the whole matter became clear to his mind,
and a great joy and exultation filled his inmost being.’5 Next, Eadmer presents
a curious story about writing tablets. Anselm wrote what he had discovered on
wax tablets and gave them to one of the monks for safe keeping. After a few
days he asked for the tablets, but they could not be found anywhere. Anselm
wrote another draft on wax tablets and gave them to the same monk. The next
day the monk found the tablets ‘scattered on the floor … and the wax which
was on them strewn about in small pieces’. Anselm pieced the wax together
and then ordered the text to be copied onto parchment.6 Then Eadmer de-
scribes the work that Anselm wrote from this draft:
From this, therefore, he composed a volume, small in size but full of

weighty discourse and most subtle contemplation, which he called the
Proslogion, because in this work he speaks either to himself or to God.7
2 Eadmer, Vita Anselmi I, 19, ed. and trans. Southern, 29: ‘Post haec incidit sibi in mentem inves-
tigare utrum uno solo et brevi argumento probari posset id quod de Deo creditur et praedica-
tur, …’ Instead of ‘[are] preached’, praedicatur could also be translated as ‘[are] predicated’.
3 Responsio 10, S I, 139.3–8.
4 Proslogion 18, S I, 114.14–115.1.
6 Eadmer, Vita Anselmi I, 19, ed. and trans. Southern, 30–31.
7 Eadmer, Vita Anselmi I, 19, ed. and trans. Southern, 31. The translation is modified; Southern
here translates contemplatio as ‘speculation’.
The Exercise Continued 199
To complete his account of the birth of the Proslogion, Eadmer finally tells
the story of Anselm’s exchange with Gaunilo, to which we will return later
in this section.
Eadmer’s account of the process that led to the writing of the main text of
the Proslogion is consonant with Anselm’s own version, except that Eadmer
additionally describes the curious incidents of the wax tablets. Specifically, the
two versions agree in suggesting that Anselm was initially looking for a single
argument, and that the composition of the treatise took place only after the
argument had been discovered. In light of what has been discussed in previous
chapters, there is reason to suspect that the accounts are misleading regarding
this point. Even though the final composition of the main body of the treatise
could take place only after the discovery of the single argument, it is probable
that Anselm had already made preparations while he was looking for it. In fact,
most of the Proslogion may well have been written in advance.
The discovery of the single argument, whereby the ‘whole matter becomes
clear’, can plausibly be described as consisting of four main constituents: (1) fo-
cusing on the notion ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’; (2) dis-
covering the reductio argument based on the signification of this notion;
(3) observing that the reductio argument can be used for deriving ‘whatever
we believe about the divine substance’; and (4) finding some solution to the
special difficulties inherent in applying the reductio argument to prove God’s
existence (cf. 2.2, 2.4, 3.2, and 3.4). These four constituents are only relevant
for a limited number of chapters in the Proslogion. The reductio is used in five
chapters, namely, Proslogion 2, 3, 5, 15, and 18, and even among these its use is
rather inconspicuous in Proslogion 5 and 18 (see 2.2 and 3.2). The notion ‘that
than which a greater cannot be thought’ or some of its variants are mentioned
in two more chapters: Proslogion 4 and 14 (see 3.2). In addition, some remarks
in Anselm’s discussion of how God’s being merciful relates to his being righ-
teous, in Proslogion 9–11, can be interpreted as alluding to the single argument,
even though no variant of Anselm’s notion appears.8
On the other hand, several long, carefully worked out chapters in the devo-
tional exercise in the Proslogion (see also 7.5) do not depend on the single ar-
gument. The single argument is not at all relevant for Proslogion 1 (the arousal
of the mind for contemplating God) and Proslogion 24–26 (the description of
the joy to be found in heaven). In addition to these, Proslogion 14–16 and 18 be-
long to the main line in the devotional exercise. Proslogion 16 does not depend
on the single argument. Proslogion 14 includes a reference to the argument,
but that reference could easily be dispensed with, and the remarks about
8 Proslogion 9–11, S I, 106–10. For example, Proslogion 9, S I, 107.8–11.

200 Chapter 9
‘seeing the light’ or ‘seeing the truth’ that are crucial for the development of the
chapter could be presented in connection with any rational argument about
God. Between these two chapters lies Proslogion 15 with the claim that God
is greater than can be thought, a conspicuous application of the single argu-
ment. However, this chapter stands out from its environment stylistically, and
Proslogion 16 would make perfect sense even if Proslogion 15 were removed.
And even though Proslogion 18 can be interpreted as building on Anselm’s re-
ductio, this type of argument is implied rather than explicit, and Anselm could
have written a similar chapter before the discovery of the single argument as
well. Excluding Proslogion 15, Anselm could have written the main line of the
devotional exercise, that is, chapters 1, 14, 16, 18, and 24–26, without yet having
a precise idea of the single argument.
The chapters that have not been mentioned so far do not depend on the
single argument (see 3.2). This is the case with Anselm’s discussion on the
problems with some of the divine attributes in Proslogion 6–8. Anselm could
have used these chapters even if he had discovered some other way of estab-
lishing the divine attributes (and actually he does not use the single argument
for establishing the attributes in Proslogion 5 either: they are derived from the
notion that God as creator must have all the good qualities). And even though
some remarks in Proslogion 9–11 can be read as allusions to the single argu-
ment, this might be partly coincidental. The rest of the chapters (12–13, 17, 19–
23) do not directly depend on the single argument, even though they discuss
various claims belonging to ‘what we believe about the divine substance’ (with
the exception of chapter 23 on the Trinity). Anselm could have composed all
these chapters before the discovery of the single argument.
The examination of the different chapters in the Proslogion shows that most
of the treatise could have been composed before the discovery of the single ar-
gument. It is even possible that a complete draft of the treatise already existed
before Anselm’s discovery. In that case, the final composition of the Proslogion
would have consisted of Anselm integrating the new argument into the work
by making changes to the existing text: he would rewrite the part dealing with
God’s existence (Proslogion 2–4), add the argument for God’s being greater
than can be thought (Proslogion 15), and make some small adjustments to a
few passages (at least in Proslogion 5 and 14, probably in Proslogion 18, perhaps
in Proslogion 9–11 and some other chapters). In the earlier draft, the discussion
about God’s existence might have been based on some other argument(s), but
it could nonetheless have included various features of Proslogion 2–4 as we
now have them.9
9 To continue the thought experiment, let us suppose that Anselm had not invented any argu-
ment that he could advertise as a ‘single argument’. Sooner or later he would have published
To support the kind of scenario presented, it is possible to advance the fol-

lowing considerations. To begin with, it is clear that Anselm in the preface (or
Eadmer in Vita Anselmi) does not give a complete report of the composition
process. The preface is not a neutral academic description of what took place
but rather a rhetorical effort to affect the way in which the treatise would be
read. Anselm would not lie, but he would be selective about what to mention
and what not to mention. Furthermore, even though the preface suggests that
curiosity and fixation were the driving forces in Anselm’s search for the single
argument, the discussions in the preceding two chapters (see especially 7.5,
8.1, and 8.5) strongly suggest that Anselm needed the argument for a specific
purpose. He wanted to construct a devotional exercise that consists of an at-
tempt at ‘contemplating God’, and he needed some powerful argument(s) for
the believed statements about God in order to construct it. If this was part of
Anselm’s motivation in looking for the single argument, it is only natural that
he was drafting various parts of the devotional exercise during his search. In ad-
dition, the way in which the single argument is used after Proslogion 4 accords
with the view that Anselm was modifying an already existing text. However,
we do not really know how much of the Proslogion had already been written
before the discovery of the single argument. The main point is that one should
be critical of the impression that one easily gains from Anselm’s and Eadmer’s
accounts, namely, the impression that the composition of the whole treatise
took place only after the discovery of the argument.
The discussion of the evolution of the Proslogion before the first publica-
tion of the treatise will unavoidably remain conjectural. The evolution of the
Proslogion from its first publication onward can be treated in more definite
terms, even though there are uncertainties here as well. It is customary to think
that the Proslogion comes in two versions published by Anselm at different
times. The earlier version consists of the main body of the text with no other
additions than the title Faith Seeking Understanding. The final version, with
the title Proslogion, consists of a preface, a list of chapters, the main body of
the text divided into twenty-six chapters, and three appendices: the Sumptum,
an extract repeating the text of Proslogion 2–4; the Pro insipiente, a criticism
of the argument in Proslogion 2–4 by some unidentified author, traditionally
attributed to Gaunilo of Marmoutier; and Anselm’s reply to the criticism, the
t he work anyway. In that case, we would have Anselm’s Proslogion without ‘Anselm’s argu-
ment’. Pointing to this possibility accentuates the contingent relation between the single
argument and the devotional exercise in the Proslogion. We could have the single argu-
ment without the Proslogion, but we could also have the Proslogion without the single
argument.
202 Chapter 9
Responsio.10 As far as the main lines of development are concerned, this is

what F. S. Schmitt’s edition of Anselm’s works presents regarding the textual
history of the Proslogion, and until recently it has been acceptable to take this
account for granted.
However, there are several complications. First, Schmitt’s edition does not
actually postulate one earlier version but several slightly different earlier ver-
sions. Schmitt offers his account of the earlier version(s) in a part of the critical
apparatus carrying the title Priores recensiones, that is, ‘earlier recensions’ (in
the plural). Schmitt does not distinguish the earlier recensions in the appara-
tus and he does not indicate how many of them should be postulated, but the
use of the plural makes it clear that he thinks there are at least two.11 Second,
Schmitt’s account of the earlier recension(s) of the Proslogion has been se-
verely criticized by Richard Sharpe in an important recent article.12 Third, as
there are several differences between the earlier version(s) and the final ver-
sion, the question arises whether some intermediate version(s) should be pos-
tulated. In fact, it is often assumed that the publication of the Proslogion took
place in three stages, the third stage consisting of the addition of the exchange
with Gaunilo.
The earlier version(s) of the Proslogion need not cause much difficulty.
On the one hand, Sharpe has shown that Schmitt’s apparatus for the earlier
recension(s) can and must be discarded because it is not based on sound
editorial scholarship.13 On the other hand, Schmitt’s account of what ingredi-
ents made up the earlier version(s) of the Proslogion can be accepted. Sharpe
claims manuscript BL Harley 203, from the first quarter of the twelfth centu-
ry, as the earliest identified witness of the earlier version of the Proslogion.14
A new truly critical edition of the Proslogion would be needed to determine
whether Anselm circulated only one early version or several slightly different
versions. For our present purposes, these can be treated as one, as the possible
minor differences in the main body of the Proslogion are inconsequential here.
10 See S I, 91 (Index siglorum) and the apparatus in S I, 93–122. Prooemium, S I, 93–94;

Capitula, S I, 95–96; Sumptum ex eodem libello, S I, 123–24; Quid ad haec respondeat
quidam pro insipiente, S I, 125–29, in the header called ‘Gaunilonis Pro insipiente’; Quid ad
haec respondeat editor ipsius libelli, S I, 130–39, in the header called ‘Responsio editoris’.
11 See the apparatus in S I, 93–122.
12 Richard Sharpe, ‘Anselm as Author: Publishing in the Late Eleventh Century’, The
Journal of Medieval Latin 19 (2009), 1–87. For a critical discussion of some aspects of this
article, see Toivo J. Holopainen, ‘On the Two Versions of the Proslogion’, Śląskie Studia
Historyczno-Teologiczne 47 (2014), 10–30.
13 Sharpe, ‘Anselm as Author’, 24, especially note 62.
14 Sharpe, ‘Anselm as Author’, 24 (note 62), 28, and 86–87.
The question about intermediate versions is more complicated. For the final
version, Anselm added the following features to the Proslogion: the preface,
the list of chapters including the chapter headings, the numbers in the margin
to indicate where each chapter begins, and the three appendices at the end,
Sumptum, Pro insipiente, and Responsio. In addition, he changed the title of
the work and probably made some changes to the main text. It is possible that
all these changes were made at the same time, that is to say, that Anselm at
some point published a new version in which all the new features were intro-
duced. On the other hand, it would be easy to construct four or five different
scenarios with four or five consecutive different versions of the Proslogion for
each, as the preface and the list of chapters do not depend on each other, the
chapter numbers could be introduced without chapter headings, the appen-
dices at the end do not depend on the additions in the beginning, and the
Pro insipiente and Responsio could have been added without the Sumptum.
However, it is plausible to treat the changes to the beginning of the work as
one set of items (also counting the chapter numbers in the margin within this
set), and the three appendices at the end as another set of items. The problem
lies in determining whether these two sets were added at the same time or at
different times.
Among the literary sources relevant for the evolution of the Proslogion from
the first published version to the final version are the preface to the work itself,
two of Anselm’s letters to Archbishop Hugh of Lyon, and Eadmer’s account
in Vita Anselmi. Towards the end of the preface, as previously explained (2.4),
Anselm offers an account concerning the publication of his two earliest trea-
tises and the development of their titles. He first circulated them under the
titles Exemplum meditandi de ratione fidei and Fides quaerens intellectum with-
out the author’s name being attached to the titles. Later, Anselm was urged by
several people, Archbishop Hugh among them, to add his name to the titles,
and Anselm explains that he changed the titles of the treatises to be able to do
so more appropriately. The new titles were Monologion and Proslogion.15 Hugh
was Archbishop of Lyon from 1083,16 and hence the preface cannot be earlier
than that.
The two letters to Hugh, Letters 100 and 109, add some more details.
Anselm sent some of his works together with the first letter without indicating
which they were.17 In the second letter, it is revealed that the works were the
Monologion and the Proslogion. Anselm sent this letter at a point in time when

16 Sharpe, ‘Anselm as Author’, 18, note 44.
17 Ep. 100, S III, 231–32.
204 Chapter 9
he had just coined these titles; the copies sent to Hugh turn out to have car-
ried the titles Monoloquium de ratione fidei (A Soliloquy on the Reason in Faith)
and Alloquium de ratione fidei (An Address on the Reason in Faith). Anselm asks
Hugh to change the titles and correct the relevant passage in the preface to the
Proslogion.18 The letters can be dated to c. 1083–85. Around 1085 can serve as
a terminus ad quem because Anselm indicates that he has not written other
works yet and it would be difficult to postpone the composition of De veritate
and De libertate arbitrii to much after 1085.19 The letters reveal an addition-
al detail not mentioned in the preface: before receiving their final titles, the
Monologion and Proslogion carried intermediate titles. Anselm’s request that
Hugh should make a specific correction to the preface shows that the pref-
ace already was in existence. Anselm does not mention the appendices of the
Proslogion, but this is not grounds for inferring that they did not yet exist. There
is no particular reason why Anselm should mention the appendices in the first
letter, and there is no particular reason why he should mention them in the
second letter. The argument from silence does not apply.
The story about the addition of the exchange with Gaunilo is related by
Eadmer. He tells us that the criticism composed by someone, that is, Pro in-
sipiente, was sent to Anselm by one of his friends. Anselm composed a reply,
the Responsio, and ordered that both the Pro insipiente and Responsio should
be appended to the end of the work in future copies.20 In two early twelfth-
century manuscripts of the Proslogion, the author of the Pro insipiente has
been identified as Gaunilo, a monk of Marmoutier.21 Eadmer fails to indicate
when the exchange with Gaunilo took place, and because he does not refer to
the other changes to the Proslogion, his account does not help clarify whether
the appending of the Pro insipiente and Responsio took place after the addition
of the preface and the list of chapters, or simultaneously with it, or before it.
Formally, the preface and the appendices do not presuppose each other.
In the appendices, there are no direct references to the preface. Furthermore,
there are no references to chapter numbers or chapter headings, and there are
no references to the Monologion. The appendices do not formally assume ac-
quaintance with any of Anselm’s work other than the body of the text in the
Proslogion itself.22 On the other hand, there is no reference to the appendi-
ces in the preface or in the list of chapters. If Anselm gave an order that the
18 Ep. 109, S III, 242.7–12.

19 See Sharpe, ‘Anselm as Author’, 17–18, 20–21.
21 See Sharpe, ‘Anselm as Author’, 34–35. However, see also 9.3 below.
22 Gaunilo’s concluding remark in Pro insipiente 8, S I, 129.20–25, shows that he had the
whole devotional exercise at his disposal, not just the part on God’s existence.
Pro insipiente and Responsio should be appended to the copies of the work, the
natural place one would expect to find that order listed is in the preface, but it
cannot be found there or in any other place in Anselm’s oeuvre. As far as formal
references are concerned, it is possible that the appendices were added before
the material in the beginning, but it is also possible that they were added after
it or simultaneously with it.
Even though the preface and the appendices do not formally presuppose
each other, there are some interesting internal connections between them.
One of the main points in the preface is the announcement of the single argu-
ment that Anselm had discovered. The account is well known, and the readers
of the Proslogion often assume that they know what Anselm is talking about,
but the description of the single argument is more opaque than the commen-
tators usually realize. Studying the main body of the Proslogion does not neces-
sarily help in deciphering it, because Anselm fails to use many of the central
expressions in the description there: there is no mention of a ‘single argument’,
the formulation ‘whatever we believe about the divine substance’ is not used,
and no explanation is given of how an argument can be used for ‘proving itself’.
In the Responsio Anselm offers explanations of these things. The term ‘single
argument’ is not used there either, but Responsio 10 explains how the expres-
sion ‘whatever we believe about the divine substance’ should be construed and
how the formula ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ can serve as a
means of proving everything that the single argument should prove. And in
Responsio 5 Anselm refers to ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ as
an ‘argument’ (argumentum) and compares it to another argument that can-
not be used for ‘proving itself’ (see 2.4, 3.4, and 4.4).
Anselm, then, offers an interesting but opaque description of the single ar-
gument in the preface, and in the Responsio he, as if inadvertently, offers ex-
planations for the opaque formulations that he had used in the preface. From
the point of view of understanding Anselm’s single argument, the preface
and the Responsio complement each other in a crucial manner. Of course, it
could be said that this is mere coincidence. However, Anselm was not only a
clever thinker but also a meticulous writer and a highly competent rhetori-
cian. The coordination of the remarks in the preface and the Responsio is best
understood as a move in a complex rhetorical undertaking. Anselm’s prayers
can be understood as rhetorical texts, and the devotional exercise in the main
body of the Proslogion as a prayer. The Proslogion is not an academic textbook
but an exercise that is designed to bring about certain effects in the partici-
pants. However, this does not apply only to the main body of the Proslogion.
The pieces of text that Anselm added before and after the devotional exercise
are material for continuing the exercise. Making the reader struggle with the
206 Chapter 9
single argument is a key element in this more complex exercise. Given that the
single argument is a very central feature of the Proslogion, the fact that both
the preface and the Responsio are needed for a proper understanding of the
argument constitutes grounds for believing that the preface and the Responsio
were added at the same time.
The manuscript tradition supports the view that there was no intermediate
published version between Fides quaerens intellectum and the final version of
the Proslogion. No early manuscript has been identified that includes the pref-
ace and the list of chapters but no appendices at the end, or that includes the
appendices but no preface and the list of chapters. There is one early manu-
script, Cambridge Trinity College B. 1. 37. (probably from the early 1090s), that
does not fit the general pattern: it includes the preface and the list of chapters
and the Sumptum but neither the Pro insipiente nor the Responsio.23 It is not
clear how this manuscript should be explained. It may be the result of defec-
tive copying. Because the addition of the Sumptum without the other appen-
dices does not make much sense, it is fairly clear that this manuscript does not
represent an intermediate published version of the Proslogion.24
To conclude the discussion of the development of the Proslogion after its
first publication, it appears that the customary way of distinguishing two ver-
sions of the Proslogion is justified. In the first phase, c. 1077–78, Anselm pub-
lished a devotional exercise with no commentary other than the title Fides
quaerens intellectum. In the second phase, c. 1083–85, Anselm published the
final version of the Proslogion, which included the preface, the list of chapters,
and the exchange with Gaunilo. The final version was initially called Alloquium
de ratione fidei and the title Proslogion was introduced a little later. There ap-
pear to be no grounds for postulating an intermediate published version that
did not include the exchange with Gaunilo. Even if there was such a version,
the lack of evidence related to it in the manuscript tradition indicates that it
can have circulated only for a very short time.
9.2 Effects of the Additions
When considering the effects that the changes Anselm made to the Proslogion
have on the understanding of the text, an argument can still be made for sep-
arating the additions to the beginning from the appendices at the end. Just
because material is available does not necessarily mean that it is used. Even
23 Sharpe, ‘Anselm as Author’, 25–26 and 82.

24 See Holopainen, ‘On the Two Versions’, 13–20.
after the publication of the final version, the devotional exercise in the main
body of the work continued to be the principal part of the whole. It can be
expected that any new reader would read the whole treatise at least once, but
after that the interests of the reader as well as chance factors would determine
how much attention the additional elements in the treatise received. Because
the appendices at the end are separate and clearly marked as appendices, it is
possible and even likely that some readers would pay considerably less atten-
tion to them than to the material added to the beginning.
As a consequence, many of the considerations that apply to the earliest au-
dience of the Proslogion apply, with some modifications, to the later audiences
provided they share the starting point that the devotional exercise is the most
important feature of the treatise.25 For two reasons, however, it can be instruc-
tive to pay special attention to the earliest audience. First, the effects of the
additions to the Proslogion can be described more distinctly because the first
audience genuinely did not have some of the material at its disposal for a peri-
od of several years. Second, the historical background described above in Part 2
specifically concerns Anselm’s first audience within the Norman realm, and it
is with this audience in mind that Anselm initially composed the treatise.
There are two critical effects of the additional material that particularly
apply to the first audience of the Proslogion, and both are related to the central
content of the preface. The first is the introduction of the single argument. The
earliest audience of Fides quaerens intellectum read the text for several years
without knowing that there is an ‘argument’ of a specific type there. The later
audiences did not have the opportunity to read the text in this way since the
remarks about the single argument in the preface can hardly escape the notice
of any reader.
The second critical effect of the additions is that Anselm’s first two treatises
begin to be perceived as a conjoined work. In the earliest phase of the circula-
tion of the Monologion and Proslogion, there was no connection between the
two works. The former had a restricted circulation under the title Exemplum
meditandi de ratione fidei. There is no direct evidence concerning the early
circulation of Fides quaerens intellectum, but there is no obvious reason why
Anselm would have wanted to restrict its circulation.26 In addition, this text
25 There have been audiences, both medieval and modern, that have not read the Proslogion
but only some excerpts from it. That is a different story.
26 Cf. Sharpe, ‘Anselm as Author’, 15–20. Sharpe claims that Anselm was for some years re-
luctant to circulate the two works in question, but he does not produce any evidence to
show that the circulation of Fides quaerens intellectum was restricted by Anselm.
208 Chapter 9
was similar in its external form to Anselm’s prayers: it consisted of a title and
a text in prayer form divided into paragraphs. In the preface to the Proslogion,
Anselm seeks to establish that the Monologion and Proslogion form a pair.
The changes in the titles serve to accentuate that the treatises belong togeth-
er. Whereas the original titles have only the word fides in common, both the
intermediate titles (Monoloquium de ratione fidei, Alloquium de ratione fidei)
and the final titles (Monologion, Proslogion) are strikingly similar, and they are
variations on a theme. The addition of the preface and the list of chapters to
the latter treatise also serves to separate it from Anselm’s other prayers and
make it resemble the Monologion in form. Presumably, the establishing of the
Monologion and the Proslogion as a pair was immediately reflected in the way
these works were circulated: the two works were meant to travel together. An
indication of this is that the last two paragraphs in the preface to the Proslogion
manifestly refer to the Monologion as well; the readers of this treatise were ex-
pected to know the history of its titles and that Archbishop Hugh had given his
approval to the work.27 Archbishop Hugh himself probably was the first recipi-
ent of the Proslogion with the preface, and Anselm sent him the Monologion
and the Proslogion at the same time. We do not know whether the two treatises
were copied into the same booklet in this case, but that is how the Monologion
and Proslogion were often circulated during the early stages.28
However, one should be careful not to read too much into the difference be-
tween the earliest audience and the later audiences. Knowing that one should
be aware of a single argument is not to be confused with having a clear un-
derstanding of the single argument, and perceiving that the Monologion and
the Proslogion form a pair is not to be confused with understanding the na-
ture of their relationship. The announcement of the single argument includes
an implicit task for the readers. It may be that some readers will intention-
ally formulate the question of what the single argument is and strive to clarify
the matter for themselves. For other readers, the awareness of there being a
single argument may function as a heuristic idea that is not particularly re-
flected upon. Most readers will have to read the whole Proslogion several times
and actively engage with what they read before any adequate understanding
of the single argument can emerge, and if one neglects the appendices, it is
more likely that the understanding of the argument will be either vague or
faulty. Understanding the relation between the Monologion and the Proslogion
in turn depends on understanding the single argument but includes other fac-
tors as well. There is a difference between the earliest audience and the later

28 See Sharpe, ‘Anselm as Author’, 30–34 and 82.
audiences in that the earliest audience received the material in two different
phases, but in both cases the readers would have to actively engage with the
material provided by Anselm in order to understand some of the central fea-
tures of the treatise.
The nature of the additions that Anselm made to the Proslogion means that
there is a considerable amount of openness when it comes to continuing the
exercise in the treatise, and much will depend on the efforts and acumen of the
reader. However, it is possible to identify issues in which changes are likely to
take place and indicate what the nature of the changes is likely to be. If Anselm
indeed was an expert rhetorician, he considered such matters when he was
working on the additions. I concentrate here on three intertwined issues: the
role of rational arguments in Anselm’s project of faith seeking understanding,
the way in which the additions serve to deepen the effects of the devotional
exercise, and the relationship of the Monologion and the Proslogion.
As explained in the preceding chapter (see especially 8.5), one of the main
points of the devotional exercise in the Proslogion is that of recommending the
attitude of faith seeking understanding. The idea of faith seeking understand-
ing is introduced in the original title of the treatise. The twofold endeavour of
contemplating God in the work (see 8.2 and 8.5) creates an intimate connec-
tion between the search for understanding and man’s ultimate goal, which is
the vision of God ‘as he is’. The exercise in the Proslogion is focused, on the
one hand, on that which is believed, which the persona in the exercise seeks
to understand. On the other hand, it is focused on the seeking and the see-
ing and the emotions of the persona as he succeeds or fails in his aspirations.
There is not much in the Proslogion about the means to be used in achieving
understanding. In the devotional context, it is, of course, proper to ask for di-
vine assistance and special illumination. It is also suggested that believing can
serve as a means of striving for understanding,29 but at least in one important
point the understanding achieved is said to be independent of any parallel
believing.30 But what about the role of rational arguments?
Of course, there are arguments in the Proslogion that Anselm meant as
strictly rational. The analysis of the single argument in Part 1 of this study
shows that Anselm was convinced that this argument makes it possible to es-
tablish both God’s existence and ‘whatever we believe about the divine sub-
stance’ in a strictly rational manner. However, Anselm does not emphasize
this aspect of the matter in the course of the exercise. He does not explicitly
emphasize it in the material added later either. Nevertheless, various features
29 Proslogion 1, S I, 100.18–19.
210 Chapter 9
in the added material indirectly call attention to the rational core in the argu-
mentation in the Proslogion. The remarks about the single argument in the
preface and in the Responsio obviously serve such a purpose, but let us begin
with some other features of the additions which require less analytical effort
on the part of the reader.
There is one addition to the Proslogion that is easily overlooked because of
its size, namely the Monologion. The existence of the Monologion preceding
the Proslogion affects the way in which the arguments in the Proslogion are
perceived. When Anselm relates the Proslogion to the Monologion in the pref-
ace to the former, he points out a difference in the complexity of arguments—
an interconnected chain of many arguments versus a single argument—but
does not mention any difference in the nature of the arguments. The natural
conclusion is that the Proslogion continues the strictly rational methodology
of Anselm’s first treatise at least as far as the single argument is concerned.
(See also 2.4.)
The appendices at the end of the Proslogion also serve to direct attention to
the rational aspects of the devotional exercise. The Sumptum, by its very exis-
tence, draws attention to the treatment of God’s existence in Proslogion 2–4. In
Pro insipiente, Gaunilo questions the cogency of Anselm’s argument for God’s
existence included in Proslogion 2–3 and presents a number of critical points
against it. Gaunilo assumes in his criticism that Anselm’s intention was to pro-
duce a strictly rational proof that does not depend on prior faith or on the
devotional context, and he lets us understand that he is speaking on behalf of
the fool, that is, the atheist of the psalms. Even though Anselm in the Responsio
directs his reply not to the fool but to the Catholic speaking on the fool’s behalf
(see 9.3),31 he nevertheless seeks to defend the argument in Proslogion 2–3 as
a rational argument. He also introduces a number of new arguments for the
existence of ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’, and they are also
meant to be based on reason alone.32 The appendices should leave no room
for error about the intended rational character of Anselm’s argument for God’s
existence, and the reader need not be able to analyse the single argument for
this effect to be achieved.
To turn now to the single argument, it was already pointed out (9.1) that
both the announcement in the preface and the explanations for some of its pe-
culiar formulations in the Responsio are needed for an adequate understand-
ing of the single argument. In both cases, the remarks related to the single
argument are embedded in a context which directs the reader to look for an
31 Responsio, [Introductio], S I, 130.3–5.

32 See Responsio 1, S I, 130.20–132.2.
argument that is rational in character. Even if a number of readers were not

able to identify the single argument correctly, the pointers that Anselm gives
direct them to focus on the rational aspects in the devotional exercise. It should
not be particularly difficult to notice the connection between the preface and
Responsio 10, and from that observation it is only a short step to understanding
the general idea in Anselm’s argument (see 2.4). If the reader recognizes the
general idea related to the single argument, then he is also capable of focusing
on those passages in the Proslogion where that idea is used or could be used. To
understand the remarks about the argument ‘proving itself’ in Responsio 5, the
reader should perhaps be knowledgeable about discussions within the branch
of dialectic called topics (see Chapter 4), but everyone need not understand
everything. For Anselm’s main purpose, it is also immaterial whether or not the
notion ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ is identified as the sin-
gle argument (cf. 3.4). This is part of the openness of the complex exercise in
the final version of the Proslogion.
Altogether, the additions to the Proslogion serve to direct the readers’ at-
tention to the rational aspects of the faith seeking understanding project. The
devotional exercise in itself recommends faith seeking understanding as an at-
titude that is suitable for a Christian believer in the present life. The additions
help the readers appreciate that providing rational proofs for what is believed
is an important part of Anselm’s endeavour. A good rational proof shows that
things necessarily are a certain way, and if the proof is lucid enough, it will
also show why the things necessarily have to be the way they are. The single
argument in the Proslogion is, in Anselm’s view, an exceptionally good argu-
ment. Its scope is God’s existence and everything that the Christians believe
about the divine essence. It is supposed not only to demonstrate all this but
also to display how everything that is believed about the divine essence hangs
together. The single argument has the potential to produce a great deal of joy
for believers seeking to understand what they believe.
This takes us to the second main point in our discussion of how the addi-
tions to the Proslogion are likely to change the effect of the treatise, namely,
the way in which the additions serve to deepen the effects of the devotional
exercise. Some brief remarks will suffice. First, Anselm provides tools for con-
ceptualizing the theme of the exercise. He says in the preface that he com-
posed the treatise ‘in the role of someone endeavouring to elevate his mind to
the contemplation of God and seeking to understand what he believes’.33 The
term ‘contemplation’ offers a perspective for analysing what takes place in the
exercise, and the appearance of the term in the preface and in the heading of

212 Chapter 9
Proslogion 1 (‘Arousal of the mind to the contemplation of God’) makes it eas-

ier to focus on the two kinds of contemplation and the relationship between
them.34 Second, reflecting on the single argument should lead to a deeper un-
derstanding of what should be believed about God. The readers should be able
to better understand the arguments that are presented in the Proslogion, and
they should also be made aware of the possibility of an indefinite number of
other applications of the single argument. Third, the series of insights that re-
sults from this should add considerably to the joy of understanding, which is a
central component of the exercise. Fourth, as explained in the first main point,
the readers should be better able to appreciate the role of rational arguments
in the project of faith seeking understanding, and they should begin to view
reason in general in a more positive way.
The third main point raised above concerns the relation between the
Monologion and the Proslogion. There is two-way traffic here. On the one hand,
the addition of the Monologion to the Proslogion is part of Anselm’s endeavour
to draw attention to the rational aspects of the exercise in the Proslogion and
in the project of faith seeking understanding. On the other hand, the addition
of the Proslogion to the Monologion indicates that this treatise should also be
read as an expression of faith seeking understanding. As the parallel titles of
the two works seek to demonstrate, these works belong to the same project in
spite of their different visages. Some further considerations about the relation-
ship between the Monologion and the Proslogion will be offered in the follow-
ing two sections.
Finally, it should be noted that the more complex exercise need not be limit-
ed to texts written by Anselm. Some of Augustine’s works, including Soliloquies,
De libero arbitrio, and On the Trinity, offer obvious parallels to Anselm’s endeav-
ours in the Monologion and Proslogion. The titles of Anselm’s treatises particu-
larly reference the Soliloquies, especially as Anselm’s Latinizes Monologion as
soliloquium (see also 8.3). The remarks about the single argument, for their
part, allude to dialectic and its role in theological investigation.
9.3 Believers, Unbelievers, and Rational Grounds
The discussions presented in this chapter and Chapter 8 should have made
it eminently clear that Anselm composed the Proslogion with a believing
audience in mind. Originally, the work was a devotional exercise with no
34 The heading of Proslogion 14, ‘How and why God is both seen and not seen by those who
seek him’, is also important for distinguishing two kinds of contemplation. See 8.5.
commentary other than the title Fides quaerens intellectum. It was similar to
Anselm’s other prayers with regard to form, and it would have been circulated
like the prayers, starting from the monastic establishments in Normandy. The
real audience of Fides quaerens intellectum consisted of believers, and there
is no indication in the work that it would theoretically or rhetorically be di-
rected at any other kind of audience. With the additions that Anselm made
in connection with the republication of the treatise, c. 1083–85, the situation
changed, but only a little. The additions composed by Anselm have the same
target audience as the devotional exercise proper, and their primary function
is to provide material that makes it possible for the audience to continue the
exercise in ways that serve Anselm’s purposes. However, there is also a sugges-
tion that there might have been another kind of audience. Gaunilo makes it
clear that he is speaking on behalf of the fool, that is, the atheist of the psalms,
and it could be expected that Anselm would reply to the fool. In the Responsio,
Anselm declines to do that and directs his reply to the believers. To justify his
choice of approach, Anselm appeals to the fact that his opponent is not really
a fool but instead an orthodox Christian speaking on behalf of the fool.35 To
clarify what is going on here, let us reflect a little more on Anselm’s project
of faith seeking understanding and how unbelievers figure in the Monologion
and Proslogion.
The project of faith seeking understanding, obviously, is a project for be-
lievers. To be able to ‘seek to understand what one believes’, one must first
believe something. What Anselm seeks to understand and make understood
is the content of the Christian faith. In the Monologion and Proslogion he con-
centrates on some basic tenets of Christianity; in later works he proceeds to
more advanced topics. When Anselm seeks to understand the Christian faith,
the object of his inquiry is ‘the reason in faith’ (ratio fidei), that is, the inter-
nal logic or internal intelligibility that exists in the content of faith or in the
things that the faith is about (see also 7.4 and 8.2). In Anselm’s view, the reason
in faith is open to rational analysis to a considerable extent, and it can also
be partly reconstructed from a purely rational starting point. Perceiving how
the different constituents in what is believed are related to each other is an
important part of what ‘understanding’ is, but ‘understanding’ can also mean
that the person who understands sees that things necessarily have to be in the
way they are (8.2). Providing rational arguments for that which is believed can
help to engender this kind of understanding if the arguments are strong and
lucid. Anselm’s primary motivation in looking for rational arguments is inter-
nal to the life of Christian believers. As Anselm points out in some important

214 Chapter 9
passages in Cur Deus homo, investigation of this kind makes it possible for be-
lievers to contemplate what they believe and ‘delight in the reason of [their]
faith’. Anselm points out that the rational considerations sought by believ-
ers can also be used for apologetic purposes: to try to win over those who are
unbelievers.36 The same arguments can serve a contemplative purpose on the
one hand, and an apologetic purpose on the other.
In the preface to the Proslogion, Anselm indicates that he will use the single
argument, which is a rational argument, for contemplative purposes. He says
that he wrote the work ‘in the role of someone endeavouring to elevate his mind
to the contemplation of God and seeking to understand what he believes’.37
The exercise in the Proslogion corresponds to this description. Anselm does
not use the single argument for apologetic purposes in the Proslogion. The
reason for this is not that it could not be applied for such purposes; Anselm
took for granted that it could. However, Anselm’s concern in the Proslogion is
not unbelievers but believers, and his concern for believers is not what they
should do with unbelievers. Instead, Anselm’s concern in the Proslogion is the
believers’ attitudes towards the kind of rational analysis of faith that he desires
to engage in. Anselm wants to bring about a change in how the issue of faith
and reason is seen in the monastic environment in which he was living and
working. Presumably, the change would also have repercussions in apologetics
in the long run, but that was not Anselm’s objective. His main goal in the trea-
tise is to advertise the idea of faith seeking understanding as well as to justify
and defend it. Because Anselm is justifying and defending what he himself
is engaged in, there is an apologetic quality in the Proslogion, but not in the
sense of ‘Christian apologetics’. Instead of trying to convince unbelievers about
the legitimacy of the Christian faith, Anselm was trying to convince believers
about the legitimacy of a certain way of approaching the Christian faith. The
Proslogion is an apology of reason and its use in the theological sphere.
Christian apologetics in the customary sense did not particularly interest
Anselm. None of his works is apologetic in a straightforward way. Anselm does
express a positive attitude towards using rational arguments to win over unbe-
lievers in Cur Deus homo.38 However, in this work there was need to defend the
rational approach, and the possibility of using rational arguments for apolo-
getic purposes would be considered as a good basis for adopting that approach.
Unbelievers remained a marginal audience for Anselm. It was the believers that
he wanted to address, and even among these he was more interested in those
36 Cur Deus homo, Commendatio operis, S II, 39.2–40.2; Cur Deus homo I, 3, S II, 50.16–20.
38 See note 36 above.
for whom religion was or could become a profession. Simply having the right
beliefs is not enough, because faith of this kind is a ‘dead faith’, and the only
reward one can expect for it is eternal torment in hell. To reach their goal, the
beatific vision of God in heaven, believers ought to have a ‘living faith’, which
means that they should incessantly strive towards God and strive to fulfil the
will of God in everything they do.39 Anselm’s prayers are designed to sustain a
living faith in those who make regular use of them (8.4). Anselm’s theological
works partly serve a similar purpose, but he also has academic interests that go
beyond what being a real believer requires. He desired to achieve a thorough
understanding of what Christians believe, and for Anselm this meant, among
other things, that an effort be made to reconstruct the content of the Christian
faith from a purely rational starting point as far as possible.
Even though Anselm does not specifically address unbelievers in the
Proslogion, the possibility of addressing them is nonetheless present in this
work. The character of the fool (insipiens) is for Anselm an unbeliever of a spe-
cific kind, with two distinctive characteristics: he is an atheist, and his intellec-
tual gifts are rather modest. Related to the latter aspect, Anselm characterizes
the fool as ‘foolish’ or ‘stupid’ (stultus) in Proslogion 3, and in the Responsio he
wonders whether the fool would really be able to present certain criticisms.40
In the main body of the Proslogion, the idea of addressing the fool in an
apologetic fashion appears only in a much attenuated form. The fool makes
an appearance in Anselm’s treatment of God’s existence in Proslogion 2–4, and
the treatment as a whole does not present the fool as a potential interlocutor.
In Proslogion 3 and 4, the fool’s denial of God’s existence calls for an expla-
nation: how can the fool think that God does not exist, when God’s mode of
being is such that he cannot be thought not to exist?41 From Proslogion 3–4 the
reader easily gains the impression that the prospect of having any meaningful
discussion with the fool is minimal. The fool appears in a bit more positive
light in Proslogion 2, where Anselm maintains that the fool will understand
some things that he hears and will also be convinced that that than which
a greater cannot be thought exists at least in the understanding.42 This sug-
gests that the fool might be an interlocutor. It is not necessary to draw this
conclusion, though, because there is another reason for the fool’s appearance.
Anselm needs to launch his discussion of God’s existence somehow, and his
conviction that God cannot be thought not to exist puts limits on how he can
39 Monologion 78, S I, 84–85. See also Monologion 71–74, S I, 81–83.

40 Proslogion 3, S I, 103.9–11; Responsio 1, S I, 130.6.
41 Proslogion 3, S I, 103.9–11; 4, S I, 103.14–104.20.
42 Proslogion 2, S I, 101.5–15.
216 Chapter 9
do it. The citation from the psalms (Psalm 14:1 or 53:1) proves a good starting
point for the treatment of God’s existence. Furthermore, Anselm can best
carry out the first stage in his inference by using a minimally rational person
as an example. Because the fool has just appeared on the stage, it is natural to
use him as a vehicle in the inference: when the fool hears the expression ‘that
than which a greater cannot be thought’, he will understand what he hears,
and consequently that than which a greater cannot be thought will be in his
understanding, because whatever is understood will be in the understand-
ing. Up to this point, there is no need to view the fool as an interlocutor. Next
comes the remark that the fool is convinced of the first stage in Anselm’s argu-
ment. The main body of the Proslogion does not aid in deciding what signifi-
cance this remark should be given from the apologetic point of view because
Anselm does not indicate what else the fool can be persuaded of. The fool’s
presence is no longer assumed after this point in the exercise. The discussion
in Proslogion 3–4 is not with the fool but about him, and the fool is not men-
tioned at all in Proslogion 5–26.
As mentioned, the Responsio addresses a believing audience. It is formally
directed to Gaunilo as a ‘Catholic’ and the real audience is the same as the
audience of the devotional exercise in the main body of the Proslogion. In the
Responsio, however, the possibility of using the single argument for apologet-
ic purposes comes out clearly: Anselm takes it for granted that his inference
about God’s existence can be used for persuading the fool that God exists. To
begin with, the way in which Anselm explains his choice of replying ‘to the
Catholic’ contains the assumption that he could have made a different choice.
Anselm says that because his critic is not really a fool but a Catholic speaking
on behalf of the fool, it ‘can suffice’ that he replies to the Catholic.43 It is as-
sumed here that Anselm could reply to the fool as well. Furthermore, in the
course of his reply Anselm indicates he thinks it is possible to reason with the
fool. In his defence of the first stage of the inference in Proslogion 2, Anselm,
interestingly, does not repeat his claims about what the fool can understand
or what he should be convinced of.44 Towards the end of the Responsio, how-
ever, Anselm makes remarks that show that his intention was to provide an
argument that could be used for proving things even to the fool. First, he ar-
gues that it was not unreasonable for him to introduce the expression ‘that
than which a greater cannot be thought’ to prove God’s existence ‘against the
fool’, because the fool will understand this expression to some extent whereas

44 Responsio 2, S I, 132.10–21.
he does not understand the word ‘god’ in any way.45 Second, Anselm offers a
lengthy exposition on how the meaning of the expression ‘that than which a
greater cannot be thought’ can be elucidated to the fool.46 These remarks make
no sense unless it is assumed that the inference in Proslogion 2 can be used for
persuading the fool of God’s existence.
In one important respect, the role of the fool in the Proslogion, including the
appendices, resembles the role that the fool plays in book II of Augustine’s De
libero arbitrio. As part of the preparation for the proof of God’s existence in this
work, Augustine reminds his interlocutor, Evodius, of the fool of the psalms
and asks whether Evodius would try to use arguments to persuade the fool of
God’s existence if the fool were willing to engage in such an effort. Evodius’
initial reaction is to seek to persuade the fool by appealing to the testimony
of the sacred writings, but Augustine reminds him of their ambition to under-
stand what they believe.47 After some remarks on faith and understanding,
the discussion proceeds to Augustine’s proof of God’s existence. Even though
the fool is not mentioned again, it is assumed that the proof presented could
also be used for persuading the fool. Anselm and Augustine have in common
that their primary motivation for producing a proof of God’s existence derives
from their desire to understand what they believe, but they both take it for
granted that the same proof could also serve an apologetic purpose. Unlike in
Anselm’s discussion, however, there is no suggestion in De libero arbitrio that
the fool of the psalms is impaired in his mental powers.
Because of the many parallels between the Proslogion and book II of De li-
bero arbitrio, it would be natural for those familiar with the latter work to think
of Anselm’s proof of God’s existence as directed to the fool. Even otherwise,
the idea of seeking to prove God’s existence to the fool does not appear far-
fetched, even though Proslogion 2–4 is ambiguous on this point. As explained
above (9.2), focusing on the inference in Proslogion 2–4 suits Anselm’s pur-
poses because it helps draw attention to the rational core of the devotional
exercise. For the same reason, it suits Anselm’s purposes to consider the infer-
ence in Proslogion 2 from the fool’s viewpoint, but Anselm’s way of doing it in
the Responsio is very cautious.
It should be mentioned here that it is not clear whether the author of Pro
insipiente, traditionally identified as Gaunilo of Marmoutier, was a real person
45 Responsio 7, S I, 136.22–137.5, especially 137.3–5.

46 Responsio 8, S I, 137.6–138.3, especially 137.28–30.
47 Augustine, De libero arbitrio II, 2, 5. See also 8.3.
218 Chapter 9
acting independently of Anselm or not.48 Because the two-phase publication of

the Proslogion is a rhetorical endeavour, one should also take into account the
possibility that Anselm asked someone to write a criticism of Proslogion 2–4.
Be that as it may, it was arguably part of Anselm’s original plan to republish
the Proslogion later with some additions. If Gaunilo (or whatever his or her
name) was a real person acting independently of Anselm, his intervention was
opportune from Anselm’s point of view, as replying to a criticism presented ‘on
behalf of the fool’ would serve Anselm’s purposes extremely well.
As with the Proslogion, the Monologion is directed to a believing audience
or, more precisely, a monastic audience. Anselm advertises this treatise as ‘an
example of meditating on the reason in faith’ and gives us to understand that
he composed it at the request of some of his fellow monks to facilitate their
monastic exercises (see 2.3 and 7.4). However, this treatise demands more of its
audience than the Proslogion because the issues treated are more challenging
and Anselm does not avoid using techniques and terminology deriving from
the art of dialectic (see 4.1 and 7.3). The character of the unbeliever has a cen-
tral role in the Monologion too, but he is different from the character of the fool
and appears in a different way. The unbeliever in the Monologion is not really
an atheist but rather a sort of agnostic: he does not hold those beliefs that the
Christians hold, either because he has not heard the things in question or has
not believed what he has heard. He does not necessarily say that God does
not exist, but he does not believe in his existence. And whereas the fool of the
Proslogion is of the slow-witted sort, Anselm chooses in the Monologion to con-
centrate on the kind of unbeliever who has at least average intelligence. Anselm
takes on the persona of such an unbeliever and fashions the Monologion as
an internal discussion that this kind of person might go through in his mind
relying on his reason alone.49 As a consequence, the argumentation in the
Monologion is supposedly not only such that it can convince unbelievers but
also such that unbelievers could come up with it on their own without the help
of the believers. Using this device, Anselm proves to his satisfaction not only
God’s existence but also many other complicated claims, including an outline
of the Trinitarian doctrine (2.3). Towards the end of the exercise, the person
who argues with himself understands the difference between a ‘dead faith’ and
a ‘living faith’ (Monologion 78, see 8.2). Because he obviously ought to prefer
48 See Ian Logan, Reading Anselm’s Proslogion: The History of Anselm’s Argument and
its Significance Today (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 116 and 122; Toivo J. Holopainen, ‘The
Proslogion in Relation to the Proslogion’, The Heythrop Journal 50 (2009), 590–602, at
601; Giles E. M. Gasper, ‘Envy, Jealousy, and the Boundaries of Orthodoxy: Anselm of
Canterbury and the Genesis of the Proslogion’, Viator 41:2 (2010), 45–68, at 64 note 63.
49 Monologion 1, S I, 13.5–11; Monologion, preface, S I, 8.18–20.
eternal enjoyment over eternal torment, he should be quite prepared to adopt

a monastic vocation at this point if only he were aware that establishments for
such a purpose existed.
There is a marked contrast between what the Monologion implies about
that which is intellectually possible for unbelievers and what Anselm seems to
be saying about the relation between faith and understanding in Proslogion 1.
Because unbelievers of at least average intelligence are supposedly able to re-
construct large parts of the Christian view on the basis of their own reflection
by presenting rational proofs, it apparently follows that they will also be able to
understand at least some parts of the Christian view. The Monologion suggests
that achieving understanding is possible for unbelievers without their having
prior faith. Proslogion 1 seems to suggest, by contrast, that believers cannot
achieve understanding without having prior faith: ‘For I do not seek to under-
stand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand. For I believe also
this: that unless I believe, I shall not understand.’50 Should we conclude that,
in Anselm’s view, the unbelievers are in a better position epistemically than the
Christian believers in that they can more easily find proofs for what they do
not yet know? Obviously, this is not what Anselm had in mind.
It could be suggested that the Proslogion reflects Anselm’s genuine views
whereas the Monologion reflects the views of the monks who had urged
Anselm to write this work, and that Anselm wanted to leave the Monologion
behind (cf. 7.1). Trying to solve the discrepancy in this way would indicate a
lack of respect towards Anselm as an author. In addition, it is not at all true that
Anselm desired to leave the Monologion behind. Quite the contrary, he tried to
make sure that the readers of the Proslogion also had the Monologion at their
disposal by establishing that the two treatises are a pair. It is also noteworthy
that even though Anselm made changes to Monologion 1 and even changed the
wording of his remark about what the unbeliever can infer, he did not change
the content of that remark.51
A plausible solution is to consider that Anselm found it rhetorically expedi-
ent to exaggerate in the Monologion and be equivocal in the Proslogion. In the
Monologion, adopting the viewpoint of the unbeliever is Anselm’s device for
accentuating the purported rationality of his method. Adopting this viewpoint
also serves to preclude a fideistic criticism that might be levelled against those
producing rational arguments, namely, the accusation that rational arguments
are presented because faith as such is judged to be unsatisfactory. In spite of
what is written in Monologion 1, Anselm hardly thought that unbelievers could
50 Proslogion 1, S I, 100.18–19.
51 See the apparatus for Monologion 1, S I, 13–14. See also 7.3–7.4.
220 Chapter 9
construct the whole chain of arguments in the Monologion. Nevertheless he

probably thought that intelligent unbelievers could come up with some of the
arguments in the chain and would find most of them convincing if these argu-
ments were presented to them.
In the Proslogion, Anselm wishes to accentuate some other aspects of his
endeavour. The main point in the work is to advertise the idea of faith seeking
understanding. The idea is devout, but some readers might still have fideistic
worries even if they did not recognize that Anselm’s treatise is based on a ratio-
nal approach. Is it the case that understanding is sought because faith as such
is deemed inadequate?52 In Proslogion 1, Anselm wants to remove this concern
and in doing so he emphasizes the importance of faith for achieving under-
standing. It is possible to read the last sentence of the chapter, ‘For I believe
also this: that unless I believe, I shall not understand’, as a fideistic claim that
all understanding depends on faith, and Anselm perhaps wanted the reader to
adopt such an attitude at this point of the exercise. A little later the reader will
recognize that at least in some cases understanding is independent of having
faith: ‘even if I did not want to believe it, I would not be able not to understand
that you exist.’53 What is more, there are some obvious ways in which faith,
from Anselm’s viewpoint, functions as a precondition for achieving under-
standing even when the approach is rational. Believers are in a better position
than unbelievers because they already have a preliminary understanding of
the issues in question due to their believing. For example, the believers know
in advance that they should look for a Trinitarian structure in the Supreme
Being. Having a preliminary understanding directs the believers’ efforts when
they engage in rational investigation. In addition, if the believers see under-
standing as a midway point between faith and seeing, as Anselm does (see 8.2),
they should also have a strong motivation for striving for understanding, and a
strong motivation increases the prospect of achieving that which is strived for.
Thinking about the significance of the last sentence in Proslogion 1 is part of
the exercise that Anselm sets for the readers of the Proslogion.
9.4 The Purpose of the Proslogion
Anselm possessed a firm confidence in the harmony of the revealed doctrine

and human reason: Christian teaching and reason, correctly used, testify to the
52 Anselm’s considered answer would be ‘yes and no’. In mature believers, not trying to un-
derstand what they believe indicates inattention towards what they believe. See 8.2.
same truth. The truth that faith proclaims has an intelligible structure, ‘the rea-
son in faith’, and believers ought to use their reason to explore and uncover that
structure as far as possible. As part of such an endeavour, Anselm sought ways
of reconstructing various aspects of what faith teaches from a purely rational
starting point. His first treatise, the Monologion, is a bold attempt at recon-
structing a number of basic tenets in the Christian view of reality by means of
reason alone (sola ratione). Anselm’s analysis of the principles determining the
destiny of rational creatures, towards the end of the Monologion, can be read
as a defence of the monastic vocation since it would be difficult for someone
who is not religious by profession to have the ‘living faith’ required for reaching
the goal of human existence, the beatific vision of God in the life to come. The
Monologion is a defence of the Christian view and of the monastic vocation,
but it is implicitly also a defence of reason and logic and the use of a rational
method in matters of faith, as Anselm strives to establish that a stringent use of
reason leads to a view that coincides with the Christian view.
Anselm’s confidence in what reason can accomplish is exceptional for a
mainstream Christian thinker. The idea that the revealed doctrine and human
reason must ultimately be in harmony is not special; on the contrary, were that
not the case, there would not be much point in theological reflection in the tra-
ditional sense. In addition, the writings of Augustine and Boethius offered au-
thoritative examples of how the intelligible structure in faith can be rationally
analysed and how some tenets of faith can be sought to be proved. However,
neither Augustine nor Boethius had attempted to give such an extensive argu-
ment ‘by means of reason alone’ as Anselm would offer in the Monologion.
Because of its boldness, Anselm’s rational endeavour would be likely to arouse
anxiety among devout believers in various environments, but in the Normandy
of the 1070s there were some special issues (see Chapter 7). Less than fifteen
years earlier, Anselm’s friend and predecessor as prior of Bec, Lanfranc, had
published a Eucharistic treatise De corpore et sanguine Domini, which is a care-
fully crafted rhetorical attack against Berengar of Tours. Lanfranc, or ‘Lanfranc’,
sought to create the impression that Berengar’s methodology is flawed in a fun-
damental way because he relies on reason and dialectic whereas the orthodox
method is to rely on authoritative writings and the authority of the Church.
Anselm could readily understand that publishing a text like the Monologion
was a hazardous enterprise, particularly in a methodological atmosphere in-
fluenced by De corpore, and a consultation with Lanfranc made him even more
aware of this. Nevertheless, Anselm did not want to give up publishing his trea-
tise. Providing the work with some new features that softened its impact—a
letter of dedication, a preface, and the title Exemplum meditandi de ratione
fidei—he let the work have restricted circulation. He did something else too.
222 Chapter 9
To make the full publication of the work possible, he began putting togeth-
er a new work that could serve as a companion to the first one—a work that
evolved into what we know as the Proslogion.
In the Proslogion, Anselm offers an indirect and highly discreet defence of
the rational approach that he had applied in the Monologion. Like De corpore,
the Proslogion is a carefully crafted rhetorical text, and even the way in which it
was published was carefully thought out. Its publication appears to have taken
place in two phases: the main body of the Proslogion was published c. 1077–78
under the title Fides quaerens intellectum, and the Proslogion roughly in the
form we now have it was published c. 1083–85.
When Anselm published Fides quaerens intellectum, the work did not have
any explicit connection with his first treatise. Nor was there any mention of
a ‘single argument’. Anselm had acquired a reputation as an author of devo-
tional writings and Fides quaerens intellectum continued that line of activity.
Anselm’s prayers are carefully wrought rhetorical texts that aim at sustain-
ing a ‘living faith’ in those who read them. The main body of the Proslogion
is like Anselm’s other prayers in many respects, but it also includes features
that gently help the reader towards appreciating the rational analysis of faith.
The devotional exercise in the work advertises understanding as a suitable goal
for the Christian believer in the present life. The ultimate objective of human
existence is the contemplation of God ‘as he is’ in the life to come. This kind of
contemplation is not yet possible in our earthly existence, maintains Anselm,
but it is possible to move towards it, and one way of doing so is to engage in
a more modest kind of contemplation, namely, the contemplation of truths
about God, and for that purpose the believers must seek to understand what
they believe about God. Anselm makes the readers pray that they might un-
derstand, go through arguments that produce understanding, and feel the joy
that results from achieving understanding. Anselm later declared that the un-
derstanding we acquire in this life is a midway point between faith and seeing,
that is, between faith and the vision of God ‘as he is’. This is what the Proslogion
also tries to convey, even though Anselm does not say it in so many words.
The search for understanding, thus, is intimately connected with the believers’
striving towards the ultimate goal, and the joy of understanding is a foretaste
of the joy of the faithful in heaven. The exercise in the Proslogion is meant
to give a gratifying initial experience of what faith seeking understanding can
be, as well as to point out a legitimate place for this kind of endeavour in the
believers’ lives.
Anselm let Fides quaerens intellectum have its effect for some time—perhaps
for around five or six years. At a second stage, he published the Monologion
and the Proslogion as a pair of works. By juxtaposing the two treatises and by
adding new material, Anselm makes both the treatises appear in a new light.
The Proslogion in its final form gently helps the reader towards realizing that
uncovering and presenting rational arguments is a central constituent of what
Anselm means by ‘faith seeking understanding’. The devotional exercise in the
main body of the Proslogion says little about what reason’s role in the search
for understanding is, but Anselm does indicate that the functioning of reason
is based on divine illumination. In the preface to the Proslogion, Anselm draws
the reader’s attention to the fact that a single argument lies at the core of the
Proslogion. The exchange with Gaunilo serves to underline the rational char-
acter of some of the arguments in the treatise, and Anselm provides pieces of
information that should make it possible for a diligent reader to identify the
single argument. Reflecting on the single argument should also lead to a deep-
er understanding of the subject matter contemplated, namely, that which is
believed about the divine essence, and to a deeper understanding of how rea-
son can be used for elucidating faith. The titles Monoloquium de ratione fidei
and Alloquium de ratione fidei, and later Monologion and Proslogion, suggest
that the main difference between the treatises is in the mode of presentation;
the underlying methodology is the same. The careful juxtaposition of the trea-
tises in the preface to the latter makes the same point. As a result, the reader is
also encouraged to see the Monologion as an expression of faith seeking under-
standing as well, and, indeed, this is consonant with Anselm’s intentions when
writing the treatise.
To compose the devotional exercise in the Proslogion, Anselm wanted to
find a simple and effective rational argument that would have an extraordinary
capability of producing insight about the divine essence. He did discover one,
his unum argumentum. Contrary to what the preface to the Proslogion suggests,
introducing the single argument was not for Anselm an end in itself. The single
argument serves the exercise in the Proslogion: first the devotional exercise
in the main body of it, and then, even more importantly, the more complex
exercise that Anselm set for the readers when he republished the work. The
announcement of the single argument in the preface to the Proslogion is an im-
plicit assignment for the readers: they should do their best to find out what the
single argument is. Struggling with the single argument serves to deepen and
modify the effects that the exercise in the main body would have. However,
the Proslogion will have opportune effects even on those readers who cannot
uncover the single argument and who fail to perceive the underlying view on
faith and reason. The audience taking part in the devotional exercise should
at least come to see that seeking to understand the content of the Christian
224 Chapter 9
faith is admissible and even desirable. Compared to De corpore’s glorification

of unintelligent faith, this is already a major outcome. Furthermore, an audi-
ence that appreciated Anselm because of the Proslogion would tolerate its
companion piece even if it was not necessarily liked by all. In the prevailing
circumstances, Anselm found it advisable not to be too explicit about his views
on faith and reason, and thus he let much depend on the readers’ diligence
and acumen.
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Journal of Medieval Latin 19 (2009), 1–87.
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2014).
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and R. W. Southern (eds.), Studies in Medieval History presented to Frederick Maurice
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Stolz, Anselm, ‘Anselm’s Theology in the Proslogion’, trans. Arthur C. McGill, in Hick
and McGill (eds.), The Many-Faced Argument (1967), 183–206. German original ‘Zur
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Vaillancourt, Mark G., ‘Introduction’, in Lanfranc of Canterbury, On the Body and Blood
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Index
Abelard, Peter 65, 66, 79–80, 82 and dialectic 65, 68–9, 73, 122, 160–1
accidents and accidental 23, 25–6, 67–8, on sacraments 115–7, 125–6, 128–33 passim
72–3, 94, 102, 111–2, 120n–121n argument for God’s existence 181, 217
Adam and Eve 176, 184, 185 theory of illumination 172, 180, 190, 192,
Adams, Marilyn McCord 71n, 169n 193–4, 196, 223
affirmation and negation 75–6, 78–9, faith, understanding, and vision 178–
119–25 passim 83, 196, 221
Alexander II, Pope 104–5 Soliloquies 180–3, 212
Ambrose 126–7 De libero arbitrio 181–3, 212, 217
angels 24, 175, 176, 177, 185 On Christian Teaching 53n, 68, 119, 121,
Anselm of Besate 99, 101, 108, 110 122, 124, 125
Anselm of Canterbury On the Trinity 22, 68n, 73, 149n, 155,
life and education 8, 95–102, 109 160–1, 173–4, 179–80, 212
relation to Lanfranc 6, 8, 93–109, 110, 111, other works 53n, 69, 125, 133, 178, 179, 180
140–3, 147, 154–8, 161–2, 170, 221 letters 128, 179
relation to De corpore 8, 95, 102–9, 110, 111, Augustine, pseudo- 122n
140–3, 147, 152–4, 161–2, 169–70, 221 authoritative writings 21–2, 24–5, 30, 68,
De grammatico 70–1, 81–2 71–2, 106, 114–5, 117, 121–8 passim, 131,
Epistola de incarnatione Verbi 20, 24–5, 137, 138, 143–7 passim, 149n, 151, 152,
30, 42, 71 155, 159, 160, 197, 217, 221
Cur Deus homo 71, 173–4, 175–8, 185, see also Bible, citations and allusions
186–7, 213–4 authority and reason see reason and
other works 70, 71, 177n, 204 rationality
letters 142n, 148n, 149, 150n, 154n, 155–6,
158n, 177n, 203–4 Barth, Karl 1n, 39n, 41n, 51–3, 168
prayers and meditations 158–9, 183–7, Bec, monastery of 6, 8, 56, 95, 96–102, 107,
205, 207–8, 213, 215, 222 140–1, 156, 182n
see also Monologion; Proslogion; school of 95, 97–102, 103, 107
Responsio; single argument; dialectic; believers and unbelievers 5, 7, 21, 52, 55, 171,
reason and rationality; understanding 173, 177–8, 196, 197, 210, 212–20
appearance see essence Berengar of Tours 6, 65, 69, 80, 93, 94,
apologetics and apologetic 3, 5–7, 55–6, 102–47 passim, 152, 154, 161, 162, 170, 221
177, 212–8 on reason, dialectic, and theology 65,
argument 69, 94, 121, 143–4, 145
ambiguity of the term 12, 37–42, 60, 63, on the Eucharist 65, 69, 103, 114–9
74–80, 82–3, 85 passim, 125, 128, 134, 136
see also single argument his ‘logical argument’ 116–7, 118–25,
Aristotle or Aristotelian 66, 67, 68, 70, 75, 137–9, 143, 146
77, 94, 111, 119, 121n, 122, 123 use of authoritative writings 116–7, 121,
Asiedu, F. B. A. 161n 125, 137, 143–4, 145
atheist 5, 197, 210, 213, 215, 218 Lanfranc’s depiction of him 110–1, 117–8,
see also fool 121–7, 135, 144–7, 154, 162
Augustine or Augustinian 22, 53n, 65, 68–9, Purgatoria epistola contra
73, 115–33 passim, 147, 149n, 155, 160–1, Almannum 114–5
171–4 passim, 178–83, 189–96 passim, Scriptum contra synodum 103, 104, 111,
212, 217, 221, 223 116–39 passim, 143, 146, 170
Index 233
Rescriptum contra Lanfrannum (De sacra Christ’s historical body 112, 114, 125, 126,
coena) 65, 69, 106n, 116n, 117n, 124n, 128–31, 132n, 134, 137, 144
135–7, 143 body vs. flesh 112, 114–5, 126, 128–39
Bible, citations and allusions passim, 144
Psalm 14:1/53:1 5, 15, 216 see also Eucharist
Psalm 36:39 185 Church 143, 144–5, 147, 152, 153, 161, 221
Psalm 43:3 192 Cicero 66, 67, 68, 74–7
Psalm 91:16 180 Collins, Ann 102n, 107n
Isaiah 7:9 178, 181 compunction 184–5
Sirach 6:6 and 32:24 157 contemplating God 8, 29, 30, 42, 167, 171–83
Wis. 5:16 185 passim, 187–96, 198, 201, 209, 211–2, 214,
Matt. 5:8 179 222, 223
Matt. 10:16 167n council see synods
Matt. 13:43 185 Cowdrey, H. E. J. 93n, 96n, 97n, 103–16
Matt. 22:30 185 passim (in notes), 144n, 149n, 154n,
Luke 10:42 194 156n, 167n
John 6:53–6 128
Acts 15:9 179 Damian, Peter 100, 101
1 Cor. 2:9 195 Davies, Brian 1n
1 Cor. 13:12 174, 179 De corpore 2, 8, 69, 80–1, 93–5, 102–47
1 Cor. 15:24 179 passim, 152–63 passim, 167, 169–71,
1 Cor. 15:44 185 221–2, 224
1 Tim. 6:16 188 dating 104–5
1 John 3:2 179, 192 author 8, 95, 102–9, 110, 141, 167, 170
Boethius 65–88 passim, 221 background 103, 113–7
and early medieval dialectic 65–8, 70n, structure 117–8
74–82, 82–8 passim rhetorical nature 8, 94–5, 102–9 passim,
dialectic and theology 68, 73, 221 110–3, 117–47 passim, 161–3, 167, 170–1,
theory of argument 7, 67, 74–9, 79–88 221
passim use of dialectic 69, 80–1, 94, 102, 119–25,
In Ciceronis Topica 66, 67, 74–9, 80, 81, 137–9, 144–7, 152–3, 161, 221
84 see also Anselm; Eucharist; Lanfranc
The Consolation of Philosophy 68 definitions 38, 39–42, 51–3, 57–8, 68, 71, 73,
the theological tractates (Opuscula 75–6, 115, 172
sacra) 68, 73 Deme, Daniel 2n
see also dialectic Demetracopoulos, John A. 53n
Boschung, Peter 71n, 81n devotion see contemplating God;
Boso, as character in Cur Deus homo 177, meditations and meditating; prayers and
186–7 praying; Proslogion: devotional exercise
dialectic or logic
Campbell, Richard 1n, 40n, 45n, 57n importance at the time 65–9, 146
carnalism see Eucharist parts 66–8
categories, theory of 67–8, 72–3, 153 sources 66–7, 77n
chapter headings 8, 22, 148, 184, 188, 192, and theology 25–6, 65, 68–9, 71–4,
194–5, 203, 204, 211–2 80–1, 94–5, 101–2, 111–2, 118–25
see also list of chapters passim, 143–7 passim, 151–3, 160, 162,
Charlesworth, M. J. 1n 211, 212, 218, 221
Christ’s body or Christ’s flesh 112–6, 119–39 sophistic misuse of 102, 122–4, 146–7,
passim, 144 152, 154
234 Index
dialectic or logic (cont.) Evans, G. R. 40n, 93n, 96n, 100, 102n, 169n,
Berengar 65, 69, 94, 102, 111, 118–25 183n
passim, 143–6 passim Evodius 217
Lanfranc or De corpore 69, 80–1, 94–5,
96, 101–2, 111–2, 120–5, 144–7, 152–3, 221 faith 14, 21, 24, 57–8, 144–5, 147, 152–4,
Anselm 2, 7, 13, 20, 25–6, 64, 65–6, 70–4, 158–9, 171–83 passim, 187, 189, 190, 196,
81–8, 101–2, 151–3, 162, 211, 212, 218, 221 213–5, 218–24
see also Augustine; Boethius; categories; faith and reason see reason and
predicables; metaphysical ideas within rationality
dialectic; sentence analysis; syllogisms faith seeking understanding see
and syllogistics; topics understanding
differentia 67–8, 74–5, 76–7 reason in faith see reason and rationality
distinctive characteristic (proprium) 55–6, see also fideistic interpretations of the
67 Proslogion
divine see God the Fall 151, 175, 176, 184, 185
Durand of Troarn 114n Felicianus 122, 123
fideistic interpretations of the Proslogion
Eadmer 97–100, 102–3, 108–9, 111, 140, 1–2, 40–1, 51–3, 168–9
197–9, 201, 203, 204 figurative speech 128–30, 136–8
equipollency of propositions 122 the fool 5, 14, 15, 44, 45, 171, 181, 197, 210,
essence 212–18
and definition 26, 68, 172 Foulon, Jean-Hervé 96n
essence or substance 32, 73
essence vs. appearance 112, 126–34 Gasper, Giles E. M. 93n, 218n
passim Gaunilo 5, 13, 35, 61–3, 87–8, 168, 199–218
principal and secondary passim, 223
essences 120n–121n, 123 question of Gaunilo’s historicity 217–8
see also God: divine substance or essence Gerbert of Aurillac 65, 66
Eucharist 2, 6, 8, 65, 69, 93–5, 102–44 Gibson, Margaret 93–108 passim (in notes),
passim, 170, 221 110–2, 113n, 114n, 116n, 123n, 167n
carnalism (ultrarealism) 103, 113–6, 131, God, in the Monologion and Proslogion
133, 136–7 concept or definition of 3, 24, 38, 39–42,
the Berengarian controversy 6, 102–3, 51–3, 57–8
105–6, 111n, 113–7, 135–6 ‘name of God’ 40, 51
Lanfranc’s involvement in the controversy divine substance or essence 4, 7, 11–12,
103–9 14, 20, 26–7, 28, 31–6, 41, 43, 46–51, 58,
Berengar’s approach 65, 69, 103, 114–9 72–3, 173, 223
passim, 125, 128, 134, 136 God’s existence, arguing for 1–8 passim,
Lanfranc’s approach in De corpore 94, 12–18, 22, 25, 28, 31, 34–6, 37n, 43–6, 51,
102, 110–3, 125–39 passim, 143–4, 170 53–4, 56, 87–8, 187, 189–90, 198, 199,
Lanfranc’s approach elsewhere 132 200, 209, 210, 215–7
Anselm’s attitude towards 109, 111 God’s mode of being 3–4, 17–18, 23, 31,
transubstantiation 94, 102, 111–2, 115, 44–5, 50, 73, 215
120n–121n attributes or properties 23, 25–7, 32–6,
‘real presence’ 115 41n, 43, 47–56 passim, 57–8, 72, 73, 151,
sacrament 115–7, 125–6, 128–37 passim, 153, 174, 189–94 passim, 197–8, 200
143, 144 Trinity 23, 25, 30, 32, 43, 51, 55, 73, 151,
see also Berengar; Lanfranc; De corpore 153, 160, 177, 194, 218, 220
Index 235
‘greater than all’ (maius omnibus) 60–4, maius omnibus see ‘greater than all’
85–8 Malcolm, Norman 17n
great-making properties 27, 34, 57–8 manuscripts 13, 97n, 104, 147–50, 154–5, 158,
greatness 17 167, 202, 204, 206
Green-Pedersen, Niels Jørgen 74n, 79n BL Harley 203 202
BNF lat. 13413 148n
Hartshorne, Charles 17n Cambridge Trinity College B. 1. 37. 206
Henry, Desmond Paul 69n, 70n, 71n Marenbon, John 65n, 66n, 67n
Herluin 97 Martin, Christopher J. 67n
Hick, John 1n, 4n, 17n Maurice, monk 155n
Hildebrand (Pope Gregory VII) 105, 145 maximal propositions 67, 68, 74–5, 76–7
Hogg, David S. 2n McGill, Arthur C. 1n, 4n, 44n, 57n, 168n
Hopkins, Jasper 1n, 36n, 38n, 40n, 41n, 83n McMahon, Robert 169n, 171n
Hugh of Lyon 149n, 203–4, 208 metaphysical ideas within dialectic 66–8,
Humbert of Silva Candida 104 72–4, 153
meditations and meditating 21, 28, 29, 71,
identity of God as that than which a greater 149, 158–9, 172, 183, 185, 218
cannot be thought 17–18, 40–1, 43–4, method in theology 6–8, 21–2, 23, 30,
51–8, 59, 60, 84, 191 42–3, 71–2, 94, 95, 121–5 passim, 140–7
Incarnation 24–5, 32, 55, 151, 176–7 passim, 150–3, 159–63 passim, 169–73
indirect proof see reductio ad absurdum passim, 197, 210, 219, 221–4
middle term see terms
King, Peter 71n modal ontological argument 17n–18n, 37n
monastic life, vocation, audience, or
La Croix, Richard R. 39n, 41n environment 6, 20n, 98–100, 135, 141,
Lanfranc of Bec/Canterbury 2, 6, 8, 142, 158–9, 169, 170, 177, 186, 213, 214,
69, 80–1, 93–163 passim, 167, 218–9, 221
169–71, 221 Monologion 6–8, 11, 13, 17n, 20–30, 32–3,
life 96 36n, 42, 52, 54, 57, 64, 71–3, 93, 94, 110,
and Anselm’s education 8, 95, 96–102, 140–3, 147–63, 169–75, 180n, 182, 187,
109 197, 203–24 passim
and the publication of the rational method 6, 7, 8, 20–2, 24–5, 30,
Monologion 6, 8, 94, 140–3, 147–8, 32, 42, 71–3, 141–3, 147, 150–4, 159–63,
154–8, 162 169–73, 175, 197, 210–24 passim
‘Lanfranc’s heritage’ 140–7 content discussed 21–7, 57–8, 71–3,
commentaries on Paul’s epistles 102, 150–4, 174–5
106–7 compared to the Proslogion 7, 20, 24–5,
letters 104–5 28–30, 43, 140–3, 182, 207–24 passim
see also De corpore; Eucharist; dialectic early versions 147–50
Leftow, Brian 1n, 39n preface 21–2, 71–2, 149–50, 158–61, 170,
letter of dedication see Monologion 180n, 218, 221
Lewry, Osmund 65n, 66n letter of dedication 149–50, 156–60, 162,
list of chapters 22, 148–50, 161, 201, 203–4, 170, 221
206, 208 list of chapters 22, 148–50, 161, 208
see also Monologion; Proslogion publishing 28–9, 93, 110, 140–3, 147–50,
Logan, Ian 1n, 38n, 39n, 41n, 81n, 82n, 218n 154–63, 203–4, 207–8, 221–3
logic see dialectic titles of 29, 149–50, 158–9, 182, 203–4,
the lost island 87–8 207–8, 212, 221–3
236 Index
Monologion (cont.) preface 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 13, 25, 27–31,

dialectic in 25–6, 71–3, 151–3, 160, 162, 36, 37,41, 42, 50, 54, 58–64 passim, 81n,
218 82–3, 86, 88, 167, 168, 171, 183,
use of rhetorical devices 156–62, 170 188, 189–90, 197, 201–6, 207–14 passim,
Montclos, Jean de 94n, 105n, 106n, 112–4, 223
115–30 passim (in notes), 131, 132n, list of chapters 201, 203–4, 206, 208
137n, 139, 167n content of the main body described 12,
Müller, Jörn 40n, 61n 13–20, 43–51, 187–96, 199–201, 215–6
mystical interpretations of the Proslogion chapter 1 14, 43, 184–5, 188–9, 190, 193–4,
1–2, 168–9 209, 212, 219–20
chapters 2–3 3–4, 12–18, 31, 34, 35, 41n,
negation see affirmation and negation 43–6, 53, 56, 84, 183, 189–90, 199, 201,
Nelis, Suzanne J. 101n 210, 215–8
Newton, Francis 111n, 113n chapter 4 12, 15, 43–6, 190, 201, 209, 210,
Nicholas II, Pope 104, 116 215–8, 220
chapter 5 19, 32, 34, 46–9, 54, 57, 84
ontological argument 3, 13 chapter 14 49, 51, 190–4, 212
see also modal ontological argument chapter 15 19, 47n, 49–50, 54, 84, 190,
193–4, 200
particular vs. universal statements 123–4 chapter 18 19–20, 50, 84, 172n, 194, 198
Paschasius Radbertus 103, 114 chapters 24–6 43, 185, 194–5
Plato 68 appendices 5, 8, 13, 43, 190, 197, 201–12
Porphyry 66, 67, 68 passim, 216–8
prayers and praying 14, 20, 40n, 55, 158, 167, use of the single argument 13–20, 42–51,
168–9, 182, 183–96 passim, 205, 207–8, 54, 56–7, 198–201
213, 215, 222 devotional exercise 3, 5–8, 12, 30, 42–3,
predicables, theory of 67–8, 72–3, 153 49, 50, 51, 142, 163, 167–71, 172, 178,
Pro insipiente 5, 201–6, 210, 217–8 182–3, 187–96, 197–217 passim, 222–4
proofs of God’s existence see Augustine; God the more complex exercise 6–8, 168, 171,
Proslogion 197, 205–13, 223–4
dating 1, 203–4, 206, 213, 222 rhetorical nature 6, 8, 110, 161–3, 170–1,
background and context 6–8, 11, 93–5, 185–7, 201, 205–6, 209, 218, 219, 222
110, 140–63, 169–71, 201, 220–2 see also single argument; Monologion;
purpose and aim 6–8, 11, 35, 88–9, Responsio
142–3, 161–3, 168, 178, 187, 195–7, 206–12
passim, 214–20 passim, 222–4 question (in topics) 74–87 passim
composition of the work 197–201
publishing 6, 28–9, 142–3, 197, 201–8, Radding, Charles M. 111n, 113n
217–8, 222–3 Rainaldus, abbot 142n, 150n, 154n
audience 5, 6, 7, 8, 20n, 55–6, 140–3, ratio fidei see reason and rationality
170–1, 206–7, 208–9, 212–7, 221 reason and rationality
two versions 1, 5–6, 8, 197, 201–6, 207–12 in humans 26, 27, 57–58, 65–6, 67–8,
passim, 217–8, 222–3 153, 172, 174–6, 193–4, 221
compared to the Monologion 7, 20, authority and reason 21–2, 24–5, 30,
24–5, 28–30, 43, 140–3, 182, 207–24 71–2, 73, 94, 122, 144–7, 150–4, 160, 161,
passim 197, 220–4
titles of 5, 20, 29, 140, 182, 183, 196, 201, faith and reason 8, 57–8, 95, 110, 140–8
203–4, 206, 207–8, 209, 212, 213, 222, 223 passim, 150–4 passim, 158–63 passim,
Index 237
169–83 passim, 187–96 passim, 209–24 vs. ‘Anselm’s argument’ 3–5, 12, 25, 53–4
passim vs. many arguments 11, 25, 28–30, 64,
reason and dialectic 65–9, 71–3, 143–7, 210
150–4, 221 means of argumentation vs. piece of
by means of reason alone (sola argumentation 4–5, 33, 37–9, 51, 54,
ratione) 21, 30, 73, 170, 172, 175, 218, 221 64
reason in faith (ratio fidei) 28, 29, 149, announced in the preface 4, 5, 11, 27–9,
158–9, 172, 177, 204, 213, 218, 221 58–9, 63–4, 83, 88, 205–14 passim, 223
see also apologetics and apologetic; quest for and discovery of 11, 198, 199,
Monologion: rational method 201, 223
reductio ad absurdum 3, 14–20, 33–6, 37–58 requirements on 31, 41, 58–60, 64, 83, 86
passim, 60–4, 83, 84–7, 190, 199, 200 burden and scope 4, 12, 31–3, 40, 54, 56,
see also single argument: argumentative 59, 211
idea argumentative idea 4, 13–20, 33–6, 37–9,
relational terms 26, 33, 36n 57–8, 59–64, 82–8, 199, 211
Responsio 5, 8, 13, 18n, 28, 35–6, 37n, 40–6 rational nature 30, 42–3, 51–3, 57–64
passim, 53n, 56n, 58–64, 82–8, 168, 198, passim, 83–9 passim, 162–3, 169–70,
201–6, 210–7 passim, 223 173, 189–90, 209–17 passim, 223
context of composition 13, 204, 217–8 candidates for 37–42
audience 213, 216 identification of 42, 58–64, 82–8
rational nature 210, 216–7, 223 Responsio 10 28, 35–6, 40n, 45, 47, 48, 54,
see also Proslogion; single argument 58–9, 63, 64, 85, 198, 205, 211
rhetoric 6, 8, 94–5, 99, 100, 102–9 passim, Responsio 5 28, 41, 58–9, 60–4, 82–8,
110–3, 117–47 passim, 157–63, 167, 170–1, 205, 211
185–7, 201, 205–6, 209, 218, 219, 221, 222 and the Boethian theory of
see also De corpore; Monologion; argument 61n, 74–9, 82–8
Proslogion application in the Proslogion 13–20,
Richardson, Herbert 36n, 38n 42–51, 54, 56–7, 198–201
Roscelin 20 possible apologetic applications 42, 54–6,
88–9, 177–8, 213–7
sacrament see Eucharist see also Proslogion; that than which a
salvation 174–7, 187 greater cannot be thought
Schmitt, Franciscus Salesius 4n, 40n, 53n, Smith, A. D. 1n, 17n
70n, 148n, 202 sola ratione see reason and rationality
school of Bec see Bec sophistic misuse of dialectic see dialectic
Schufreider, Gregory 2n, 37n, 169n, Southern, Richard 93–106 passim (in
190n–191n notes), 111–2, 120, 121n, 122n, 123n, 154n,
Scriptum see Berengar: Scriptum contra 183n, 197n, 198n
synodum species (appearance) see essence
Seneca 53n, 68 Steiger, Lothar 81n
sentence analysis, dialectical 67, 74–9 Stolz, Anselm 44n, 57n, 168
passim, 83–8 passim, 118–25 passim, Stump, Eleonore 74n
137–8 subject and predicate see predicables; terms
Sharpe, Richard 142n, 148n, 149n, 150n, 183n, substance or substantial
202, 203n, 204n, 206n, 207n, 208n category of substance 66, 68, 70, 78
the single argument 4–5, 7–8, 11–89 passim, substantial predication 23, 25–7, 32–3,
163, 168–73 passim, 189–90, 197–216 36n, 57, 72
passim, 222–3 person as substance 73, 160
238 Index
substance or substantial (cont.) transubstantiation see Eucharist

substance and accident 23, 94, 102, Trinity see God
111–2, 120n–121n
see also God: divine substance or essence; unbelievers see believers and unbelievers; fool
Eucharist: transubstantiation understanding
Sumptum 43, 201, 202n, 203, 206, 210 ‘in the understanding’ (in intellectu) 3,
Sweeney, Eileen C. 2n, 37n, 155n, 156n, 169n, 15–17, 44, 46, 61, 63, 215–6
183n, 186 faith, understanding, and vision 171–83,
syllogisms and syllogistics 66–7, 74, 76–86 187–96 passim, 220–2
passim, 111, 122–4 faith seeking understanding 5, 6–7,
synods 103–6, 111, 115–7, 135–9, 145 14, 29–30, 42, 140, 172, 177, 181, 187–96
passim, 209–14 passim, 219–24 passim
terms understanding as a midway 178, 196,
extreme terms and middle term 77–88 220, 222
passim different ways of understanding 172–3,
subject and predicate 77–88 passim, 213
119, 124–5 unum argumentum see single argument
see also syllogisms and syllogistics; Urban II, Pope 177
sentence analysis
that than which a greater cannot be thought Vaillancourt, Mark G. 94n, 110n, 112n
3–5, 14–19, 27, 34–64 passim, 82–8, 183, Vaughn, Sally N. 167
189–92, 198, 199, 205, 210, 211, 215–7 Vigilius Thapsensis 122n
different formulations 14n Viola, Coloman 154n
background 52–4 vision of God 173–96 passim, 209, 215, 221,
as the single argument 5, 42, 58–64, 222
82–8 Visser, Sandra 1n, 37n
and God 43, 44, 51–8
compared to ‘greater than all’ 60–4, 85–8 Ward, Benedicta 183n, 184n, 185–6
see also single argument; God wax tablets, Eadmer’s story of the 198–9
Theodoric of Paderborn 167 William, Duke 107
theory of argument see Boethius Williams, Thomas 1n, 37n
Topic (in topics) 74–5, 76–7, 79, 80–1, 122
topics (dialectic) 66–7, 68, 74–9, 80–8
passim, 122–4, 211

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A Historical Study of Anselm’s Proslogion

Anselm Studies and Texts

Giles E.M. Gasper (University of Durham)

Marcia Colish (Yale University)

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/as

Copyright 2020 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

2 The General Idea of the Argument 11

3 A Specific Identification of the Argument 37

4 The Argument and Dialectic 65

5 Anselm and Lanfranc—the Early Years 93

6 Reappraisal of De corpore 110

7 Anselm and Lanfranc’s Heritage 140

8 The Devotional Exercise 167

9 The Exercise Continued 197

The Proslogion (original version c. 1077–78, final version c. 1083–85) by Anselm

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004426665_002

of the Proslogion.4 Moreover, as in the 1960s, there is no general consensus

considered in the literature on the Proslogion, even though it is well known

at justifying the kind of rational approach that he used in the Monologion,

Proslogion is focused on a re-evaluation of De corpore et sanguine Domini at-

The General Idea of the Argument

2.1 Focusing on the unum argumentum

In the preface to the Proslogion, Anselm gives us to understand that he com-

1 Proslogion, preface, S I, 93.2–94.2. See also 2.4.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004426665_003

2.2 Anselm’s reductio

In Proslogion 2, Anselm presents a piece of argumentation which is commonly

4 See also 9.1.

Therefore, Lord, you who give understanding to faith, grant me that I

The first sentence is closely connected to the discussion at the end of

than which a greater cannot be thought is only in the understanding,

4. The comparison that Anselm makes is in terms of ‘greatness’. Anselm as-

And it assuredly exists so truly that it cannot even be thought not to

12 Cf. Monologion 2, S I, 15.19–20.

Therefore, something than which a greater cannot be thought exists so

Here, the conclusion of the three-stage argument in Proslogion 2–3 is applied

Finally, in Proslogion 18 Anselm proves that God is absolutely one and

And if he [Roscelin] is one of those modern dialecticians who believe

Given this presupposition, it is clear that the inference in Proslogion 18 is an in-

2.3 The Monologion—a First Reading

18 Epistola de incarnatione Verbi 4, S II, 17.22–18.4.

21 Monologion, preface, S I, 7.2–12.

25 Monologion, preface, S I, 8.8–14.

29 Monologion 5–8, S I, 18–24.

In chapters 66–78 of the Monologion, Anselm considers the relation of crea-

39 Monologion 68–72, S I, 78–82.

present two kinds of predications about a subject: substantial (or essential)

47 Monologion 15, S I, 28.8–23.

Hence, as it is impious to think that the substance of the supreme nature

In Anselm’s understanding, the divine essence is ‘whatever is entirely better

Obviously, the ability to discern which properties are great-making is also a

2.4 The Preface and Responsio 10

Anselm lets us understand that he composed the Proslogion in order to intro-

49 Monologion 15, S I, 29.17–33.

After I had published, at the pressing requests of several of my brethren, a

51 The discussion in 2.4 leans on Holopainen, ‘Anselm’s Argumentum’, 5–10, and

53 Proslogion, preface, S I, 93.20–94.2: ‘Aestimans igitur quod me gaudebam invenisse, si

Anselm placed two requirements on the single argument that he was

It is the burden of the single argument to be able to demonstrate or establish

58 Proslogion 22, S I, 117.1–2.

63 Monologion 15, S I, 28.8–23.

‘whatever it is better to be than not to be’ (Proslogion 5). To put it differently,

1 Proslogion, preface, S I, 93.2–94.2. See also 2.4.

4 See also 9.1.

12 Cf. Monologion 2, S I, 15.19–20.

18 Epistola de incarnatione Verbi 4, S II, 17.22–18.4.

21 Monologion, preface, S I, 7.2–12.

25 Monologion, preface, S I, 8.8–14.

29 Monologion 5–8, S I, 18–24.

39 Monologion 68–72, S I, 78–82.

47 Monologion 15, S I, 28.8–23.

49 Monologion 15, S I, 29.17–33.

51 The discussion in 2.4 leans on Holopainen, ‘Anselm’s Argumentum’, 5–10, and

53 Proslogion, preface, S I, 93.20–94.2: ‘Aestimans igitur quod me gaudebam invenisse, si

58 Proslogion 22, S I, 117.1–2.

63 Monologion 15, S I, 28.8–23.

9 Barth, Anselm: Fides Quaerens Intellectum.

13 Proslogion, preface, S I, 93.20–94.2.

14 See note 11 above for references.

32 Proslogion 14, S I, 111.8–11.

35 Proslogion 15, S I, 112.14–17.

43 Proslogion 23, S I, 117.

45 See Barth, Anselm: Fides Quaerens Intellectum.

48 Proslogion 2, S I, 101.4–5. Responsio 1, S I, 130.12–16.

57 Proslogion, preface, S I, 93.6–10.

60 Responsio 5, S I, 134.24–28. For my earlier attempts to interpret Responsio 5, see Holopainen,

1 Berengar of Tours, Rescriptum contra Lanfrannum I, ed. R. B. C. Huygens, Corpus

8 Augustine, De ordine II, 13, 38.

18 De grammatico 21, S I, 168.8–11.

21 Monologion, preface, S I, 7.5–11.

24 Monologion 25, S I, 43–44.

48 Peter Abelard, Super Topica glossae, ed. Dal Pra, 294.

52 De grammatico 1, S I, 146.3–6.

54 De grammatico 4, S I, 148.29–149.14.

56 Responsio 5, S I, 135.18–20 and 135.24–6. See 3.4 and below.