St. Anselm (1033–1109) was an Italian-born Benedictine monk who became abbot of Bec, in Normandy, and Archbishop of Canterbury, one of the greatest thinkers of the Middle Ages, often called the father of scholasticism. He described theology as “faith seeking understanding,” gave the famous argument for God’s existence as “that than which nothing greater can be conceived,” and explained in Why God Became Man how Christ’s death saved us. He also defended the freedom of the Church against two English kings and was twice exiled. He is a Doctor of the Church, and his feast day is April 21. Below are his story, his own prayer from the Proslogium, and a prayer to St. Anselm.
A short prayer to St. Anselm, written for this page:
St. Anselm, you loved God with your mind as well as your heart.
Pray for students, teachers and all who seek the truth,
that our faith may seek understanding, and our understanding lead us to love. Amen.
Who was St. Anselm?
Anselm was born in 1033 at Aosta, in the Italian Alps. After a restless youth and a quarrel with his father, he crossed the Alps and came to the abbey of Bec, in Normandy, drawn by its famous teacher Lanfranc. He became a monk there at twenty-seven, then prior, and in 1078 abbot. At Bec he wrote his Monologion and Proslogion, prayerful meditations that seek to understand by reason what faith already believes.
In 1093 he was made Archbishop of Canterbury, succeeding Lanfranc. He clashed with King William II and then with Henry I over the freedom of the Church, especially the king’s claim to invest bishops with ring and staff, and he spent years in exile, during which he wrote Cur Deus Homo, Why God Became Man. He also condemned the slave trade in England at the Council of Westminster in 1102. He died at Canterbury on April 21, 1109, and was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Clement XI in 1720.
“I believe in order to understand”
St. Anselm’s Proslogium begins as a prayer. Its first chapter ends with these words (Proslogium 1):
Be it mine to look up to thy light, even from afar, even from the depths. Teach me to seek thee, and reveal thyself to me, when I seek thee, for I cannot seek thee, except thou teach me, nor find thee, except thou reveal thyself. Let me seek thee in longing, let me long for thee in seeking; let me find thee in love, and love thee in finding. Lord, I acknowledge and I thank thee that thou hast created me in this thine image, in order that I may be mindful of thee, may conceive of thee, and love thee; but that image has been so consumed and wasted away by vices, and obscured by the smoke of wrong-doing, that it cannot achieve that for which it was made, except thou renew it, and create it anew. I do not endeavor, O Lord, to penetrate thy sublimity, for in no wise do I compare my understanding with that; but I long to understand in some degree thy truth, which my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand. For this also I believe, that unless I believed, I should not understand.
Scripture says the same (Hebrews 11:6, Douay-Rheims):
But without faith it is impossible to please God. For he that cometh to God, must believe that he is, and is a rewarder to them that seek him.
What is St. Anselm the patron saint of?
- Philosophers and theologians
- Students and scholars
Feast day
The optional memorial of St. Anselm, bishop and Doctor of the Church, is April 21, the day of his death.
Frequently asked questions
What does “faith seeking understanding” mean?
It is Anselm’s description of theology: a believer who already loves God uses reason to understand more deeply what he believes.
What is St. Anselm’s argument for God’s existence?
In the Proslogion he argued that God is “that than which nothing greater can be conceived,” and that such a being must exist in reality, not only in the mind. Philosophers call it the ontological argument.
When is St. Anselm’s feast day?
April 21.
More saints
- Doctors of the Church
- St. Thomas Aquinas prayer
- St. Bede the Venerable
- St. Thomas Becket
- St. Benedict prayer
- St. Albert the Great
- Saint of the day
Texts and sources
- St. Anselm, Proslogium 1, trans. Sidney Norton Deane (Chicago: Open Court, 1903), public domain (archive.org).
- Hebrews 11:6 (Douay-Rheims).