Works

The main part of Anselm’s production consists of 11 densely written works (volumes I and II of Opera omnia, ed. Schmitt). Of them, all except one deal with topics pertaining to philosophical theology; the one exception, De grammatico, pertains to dialectic. Philosophically relevant is also a group of fragments known as the Unfinished Work or Fragmenta philosophica. In addition, Anselm left a collection of 21 prayers and 3 meditations, as well as a large collection of letters. Finally, there are collections of material based on Anselm’s oral teaching (edited in the Memorials of St Anselm, 1969).

Six of Anselm’s works derive from the period when he was first prior and then abbot of Bec. The first two, the Monologion (A Soliloquy, c. 1076) and the Proslogion (An Address, 1077/1078), form a pair. Their main theme is the doctrine of God, but other important topics are also involved. The four other works that Anselm wrote at Bec are often referred to as his “philosophical dialogues.’’ In the 1080s, he wrote a series of three connected dialogues: De veritate (On Truth), De libertate arbitrii (On Freedom of Choice), and De casu diaboli (On the Fall of the Devil). The fourth “philosophical dialogue,’’ the dialectical treatise De grammatico, derives roughly from the same period. In recent years, an early dating for De grammatico has been spreading: it is alleged that Anselm composed it c. 1060 when he was Lanfranc’s associate. The dating is based on Southern’s (1990) speculation about Lanfranc being an expert dialectician and Anselm not having any genuine interest in the study of dialectic. Neither of these claims is true.

Around the time he moved from Bec to Canterbury, Anselm was involved in polemics against the Trinitarian teaching of Roscelin of Compiegne. Anselm’s contribution is a treatise called Epistola de incarnatione verbi (Letter on the Incarnation of the Word). An early version of it was published when Anselm still was at Bec, in 1092; the final version was completed in 1094. In 1095, Anselm started working on a treatise in dialogue form that is commonly perceived as his theological main work, Cur Deus homo (Why God Became Man, or, Why a God-man). He finished it in 1098 in Italy during his first exile. Within the next years, he also composed the works De conceptu virginali et de originalipeccato (On the Virgin Conception and Original Sin, 1099) and De processione spiritus sancti (On the Procession of the Holy Spirit, 1101). Anselm’s last work is De concordia praescientiae et praedestinationis et gratiae dei cum libero arbitrio (On the Harmony of the Foreknowledge, the Predestination and the Grace of God with Free Choice, 1107-1108), referred to in abbreviated form as De concordia.

Anselm’s works display a remarkable unity of thought. He had already consolidated the main features of his thinking before he published his first treatise at the mature age of 43.